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Why did the fascist regime adopt racial laws in the 1930s? The laws were aimed first at non-Europeans and people of mixed race in the colonies, and then at the Jews. This article reviews recent studies on the racial laws, which took a variety of forms, within which the specificity of the anti-Semitic legislation has to be acknowledged even though the legislation against the Jews came at much the same time as the other racial legislation. Were these laws an attempt to imitate Nazi Germany, and hence in some form an off-shoot of foreign policy? Or were there seeds of racism already present in Italian politics and society that found fulfillment in the racial laws? These issues have for some time been the subject of major debate, in which different historiographical traditions have come into conflict, while attention has been drawn to the need to counter attempts to blame others for what remains the responsibility of Italians.

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