by Michael A. Osborne*

Marseille continually reinterprets its colonial heritage. The city constitutes an imaginarium of material and immaterial symbols revealing of its history. No French city has been more wedded to colonization than this cross roads of Mediterranean peoples. Historians signal frequently its lavish colonial expositions of 1906 and 1922, and a visitor to the one of 1922 found that the city itself was “a colonial city, … [like] a capital of the French colonial empire.” Aside from the 1931 Exposition coloniale in Paris, the 1906 exposition was the largest French event of its genre. Continue reading →