Review
"This book is important.. I recommend this scholarly work to anyone who really wants to understand Libya."--Tony Benn

"A wonderful work."--Noam Chomsky


Book Description
This book describes the principal events which have shaped contemporary Libya, from independence to the Lockerbie affair. It reviews Libya's independence process, its territorial disputes with neighbors, the many abuses of human rights perpetrated by the Qadhafi regime, state terrorism and the US manipulation of the United Nations in its confrontation with Libya.


About the Author
Geoff Simons is the author of more than a dozen books on international politics, including works on the United Nations, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Libya's modern history has been a sorry tale. No sooner had the subjugation of the Libyan people by the Ottoman Turks ended, following World War One, than Libya found itself again under the even more repressive regime of a foreign power -- this time fascist Italy. The ravages of World War Two, during which Libya was at the centre of the North African conflict, were followed by a brief period of allied occupation until a qualified Libyan independence, mediated by the United Nations, was finally achieved in December 1951. But Western interests continued. Libyan oil combined with the country's strategic value at the intersection of the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean made Libya a valuable asset to the West, principally the United States.

The lingering Western presence, in the form of British and American bases, added to dissatisfaction with the pro-Western Idris monarchy, and fuelled mounting discontent among the Libyan people. Following a coup d'etat, the young Colonel Qadhafi succeeded in breaking many of Libya's residual colonial links but at a huge cost -- a new authoritarianism which became increasingly eccentric and repressive as the country found itself first marginalized and then condemned to pariah status by an America exasperated with Libya's radicalism and apparent links to terrorist groups. The final irony, as Libya now seeks to carve a fresh path into the twenty-first century, is that the most dramatic episode in the country's recent history -- the accusation that it master-minded the Lockerbie tragedy -- has provided a way for Libya to achieve at least some rehabilitation within the international community, by acceding to the trial of two of its citizens and tolerating with protest the guilty verdict on one.