The launch of a new book entitled From Colonialism to Mintoffianism: Malta’s transition from a British base to a commercial economy will take place on Thursday 6 December at the Workers’ Memorial Building (GWU), South Street Valletta at 7pm.

The book’s author, Mark Camilleri said: “I was urged to publish this book by my strong feeling of disappointment at the mythical trends of the popular-historiography of Dom Mintoff.

“Post-war Maltese history has often been narrated with a strong sense of passion and emotion and this passionate tinge in historiography has been enhanced by the death of Dom Mintoff. Thus, this is simply a humble attempt to present an academic work that stands out from the crowd, a crowd of books that is.

“This work doesn’t look at personalities or the symbolic events of Maltese post-war history. It tries to answer the right questions and provide detailed answers to them.

“It explains Malta’s march towards economic development. Under the British, Malta was a poor country dependent on British defence spending. In 1979, the Malta Labour Party, under the leadership of Dom Mintoff, closed down the British base for good. What replaced British defence spending? What were the economic conditions at the time? How did Malta become a developed country? What was the role of the Malta Labour Party and the Nationalist Party in all of this? Why Mintoffianism? This book tries to answer these questions and more.

 “There is a strong element of superstition which drives the dichotomous image of Mintoff in the collective consciousness of society. Being elevated as a saint and a patriarch from one side and downgraded as an evil dictator from another makes Mintoff’s history look novel. There is in fact something more complex in Maltese modern history than dominating political figures which stir different emotions in different people.”