SOLLAI Michele

michele.sollai@sciencespo.fr

Swiss National Science Foundation / Sciences Po, Paris

BIOGRAFIA

Michele Sollai is a postdoctoral researcher of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), currently a visiting scholar at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, Paris. Dr. Sollai obtained his PhD in International History in 2022 from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva, with a thesis on the history of agrarian development in Ethiopia from fascist colonialism to post-WWII international aid.
Dr. Sollai’s current postdoctoral project is titled “The Global Battle of Wheat: Mobilizing Science for Agrarian Development in Fascist Italy”. Centered on the historical analysis of agrarian and environmental sciences such as plant breeding, plant pathology, and agroecology, “The Global Battle of Wheat” examines the emergence of a fascist “Green Revolution” in interwar Italy and its relationship with the 20th century evolution of agrarian modernization on a global scale.
Dr. Sollai’s research interests include the history of development, environmental history, the history of science and technology, the history of fascism, the history of colonialism, the history of international organizations, agroecology and agrobiodiversity studies.

PUBBLICAZIONI

“How to Feed an Empire? Agrarian Science, Indigenous Farming, and Wheat Autarky in Italian-Occupied Ethiopia (1937–1941).” Agricultural History, v. 96, no. 3 (2022): 379-416.

“Microcosms of Colonial Development: Italian and Ethiopian Farmers at the Crossroads of Fascist Empire Building (1937–1941).” Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell’800 e del ‘900 24, no. 1 (2021): 79–101.