Under Mussolini's leadership, Fascist Italy sought to increase its influence in the Middle East. This volume, now available for the first time in paperback, examines the motivations behind Italy's policy, the diverse methods the regime employed and the reasons why Italian efforts ultimately failed. By looking at the interplay between foreign, colonial, cultural and military policies, Fascist Italy and the Middle East provides a new and challenging interpretation of the ambitions and contradictions that characterized Mussolini's Italy. It analyses the ways in which the Fascist regime sought to befriend the Islamic world and looks at how Italian policies were propagated and received by Middle Eastern societies. It also uncovers for the first time the grandiose plans that were prepared in the summer of 1940 for Fascist territorial expansion in Africa and the Middle East.