The Making of Modern Libya ― State Formation, Colonization, and Resistance

To examine the social history of his native North African country, Ahmida (political science, U. of New England) draws on primary archival research, oral interviews, and comparative and critical theory studies inspired by debates in postcolonial subaltern's studies and post-orientalist and new Ottoman histories. He focuses on the 19th century and to the middle of the 20th, that is, from the afternoon of Ottoman rule through European colonization to the beginning of resistance to it between the world wars. His goal is to present Libyan social and cultural history not as a footnote to colonialism or great-power politics, but as lived and understood by the ordinary illiterate tribesmen, peasants, migrant laborers, women, and slaves that make up the population. Among his topics are ecological and social origins of regionalism and pastoralism, a trading and communal political economy 1830-1911, the political economy of the Sanusiyya, and the politics of collaboration and resistance 1911-32. The first edition, published in 1994, was based on his Ph.D. dissertation Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida is Professor of Political Science at the University of New England. He is the author of Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya and the editor of Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture, and Politics.