The “decolonisation” of fascist historiography in Libya has been a particularly long process, which permitted the emergence of a scientific debate only in the 1980’s, based on the study of violence and its consequences. Today colonial history in Italy struggles to be recognized, though many questions prompt us to reassess the wealth of economic difficulties and local social tensions against the idea of a fascism imposed from on high. While the Fascist party appears to have been a vehicle of colonial power operating outside the ambit of law, it was also considered as a means to “unify” Italians and Muslims in a new Mediterranean polity, whenever racial issues were raised. To what extent could a colonial society be turned into a fascist society? How to reconcile the development of fascist organisations for natives on the one hand and the growing inequality between Libyans and Italians on the other?