Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Chronology, 1900–2011
- Acronyms
- Introduction: Libya, the enigmatic oil state
- Chapter 1 “A tract which is wholly sand …” Herodotus
- Chapter 2 Italy’s Fourth Shore and decolonization, 1911–1950
- Chapter 3 The Sanusi Monarchy as Accidental State, 1951–1969
- Chapter 4 A Libyan sandstorm: from monarchy to republic, 1969–1973
- Chapter 5 The Green Book’s stateless society, 1973–1986
- Chapter 6 The limits of the revolution, 1986–2000
- Chapter 7 Reconciliation, civil war, and fin de régime, 2003–2011
- Epilogue Whither Libya?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: Libya, the enigmatic oil state
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Chronology, 1900–2011
- Acronyms
- Introduction: Libya, the enigmatic oil state
- Chapter 1 “A tract which is wholly sand …” Herodotus
- Chapter 2 Italy’s Fourth Shore and decolonization, 1911–1950
- Chapter 3 The Sanusi Monarchy as Accidental State, 1951–1969
- Chapter 4 A Libyan sandstorm: from monarchy to republic, 1969–1973
- Chapter 5 The Green Book’s stateless society, 1973–1986
- Chapter 6 The limits of the revolution, 1986–2000
- Chapter 7 Reconciliation, civil war, and fin de régime, 2003–2011
- Epilogue Whither Libya?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The history of Libya in the twentieth century represents, even by Middle Eastern standards, an extraordinary odyssey: from Ottoman backwater to Italian colony; from conservative monarchy to revolutionary regime; from rags to riches; and from brinkmanship to a grudging and still unfolding statesmanship. For most of the century, the inhabitants of the three provinces that became incorporated into the United Kingdom of Libya in 1951 – Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fazzan – stood on the sidelines as a succession of foreign and local rulers and interests shaped their country. Excluded from involvement with the colonial machinery during the Italian occupation (1911–1942), marginalized politically during the monarchy (1951–1969), and subject to a homegrown version of socialism after the military coup in 1969, Libyans share a tumultuous history of state-building that continues to leave them perplexed even today.
Perhaps it is more accurate to observe that the people of Libya became witnesses to a political and economic phenomenon that has often been observed in oil exporters throughout the Middle East: the attempt by their rulers, with the aid of extensive oil revenues, to avoid the process of state-building that normally includes the steady expansion of the administrative reach of the state, as well as a growing incorporation of local citizens in that process. Indeed, in Libya even today, it remains problematic to consider its people truly as citizens. Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, their current ruler continues to view them more or less as his personal subjects, and he has done little to help create confidence in the more impersonal institutions of a modern state. To that extent, the Qadhafi regime shows a remarkable continuity with the monarchy that preceded it, and has created a political system that will face considerable challenges in the future.
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- A History of Modern Libya , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012