Italy: Building Like the Caesars

Back home in Italy they are dubbed Gli Insabbiati — literally, "buried in the sand." Abroad, some 25,000 expatriate engineers, surveyors, carpenters, me chanics and truck drivers have helped make Italy a major force in the rich, ruggedly competitive field of interna tional construction. The Gli Insabbiati started with projects in the deserts of North Africa — hence their nickname —but now they are spreading around the world. More and more, they resemble the Caesars' legions, who two millennia ago built highways, aqueducts and cities from Scotland to Syria.

Vatican Foundations. Completing projects at a rate of $200 million yearly...

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