For a long time now it has been common understanding that Africa played only a marginal role in the First World War. Its reduced theatre of operations appeared irrelevant to the strategic balance of the major powers. This volume is a contribution to the growing body of historical literature that explores the global and social history of the First World War. It questions the supposedly marginal role of Africa during the Great War with a special focus on Northeast Africa. In fact, between 1911 and 1924 a series of influential political and social upheavals took place in the vast expanse between Tripoli and Addis Ababa. The First World War was to profoundly change the local balance of power. This volume consists of fifteen chapters divided into three sections. The essays examine the social, political and operational course of the war and assess its consequences in a region straddling Africa and the Middle East. The relationship between local events and global processes is explored, together with the regional protagonists and their agency. Contrary to the myth still prevailing, the First World War did have both immediate and long-term effects on the region. This book highlights some of the significant aspects associated with it.

This open access book provides a multi-perspective approach to the caravan trade in the Sahara during the 19th century. Based on travelogues from European travelers, recently found Arab sources, historical maps and results from several expeditions, the book gives an overview of the historical periods of the caravan trade as well as detailed information about the infrastructure which was necessary to establish those trade networks. Included are a variety of unique historical and recent maps as well as remote sensing images of the important trade routes and the corresponding historic oases. To give a deeper understanding of how those trading networks work, aspects such as culturally influenced concepts of spatial orientation are discussed. The book aims to be a useful reference for the caravan trade in the Sahara, that can be recommended both to students and to specialists and researchers in the field of Geography, History and African Studies.

This is the first in a new series of guides to the archaeology of Libya, from prehistoric times until the invasion of the Bani Hilal in AD 1051. It deals with a region which offers the visitor not only the classical splendours of UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Sabratha and Lepcis Magna, but also a hinterland which is rich in standing monuments of the Punic, Roman and early Islamic periods. All are described and explained in a comprehensive gazetteer, packed full of plans and photographs, and with GPS coordinates and directions for visiting. "THE guidebook to Libya's archaeology" - David Mattingly

(BAR S236, 1985)

The war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire for possession of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania was a crucial event both for Italian domestic and foreign policy and for the contemporary European balance of power. For Italian society the Libyan conflict was in many ways a dress rehearsal for the First World War. The propaganda campaign for the occupation of Libya, orchestrated around the myth of the “Grande Italia” and the “Grande proletaria” had an important impact on the Italian political system, even more than the military operations, testing its stability and leading to violent debate not only between the parties, but also inside the parties themselves. The essays brought together in this book illustrate the attitude of the political forces that were the main supporters of the Italian intervention in Libya, and the international context in which the war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire came about. Using new sources or re-reading the sources already known with the insight gained from the passage of a hundred years, the authors reflect on a conflict that had profound repercussions for Italian and European politics and contributed to ending the Belle Époque, raising in the minds of both the Italian and European public the specter of a new war in Europe.

In the wake of the civil war and Qadhafi's demise, the time is ripe for a new edition of Dirk Vandewalle's classic history of Libya. The book, which was originally published in 2006, traces the country's history back to the 1900s, through the Italian occupation in the early twentieth century, the Sanusi monarchy and, thereafter, to the revolution of 1969 and the accession of Qadhafi. The following chapters analyse the economics and politics of Qadhafi's revolution, offering insights into the man and his ideology as reflected in his Green Book. The new edition covers the intervening years, since 2005, when, courted by the West, Qadhafi came in from the cold. At home, though, his people were disillusioned, and economic liberalization came too late to forestall revolution. In an epilogue, the author reflects upon Qadhafi's premiership and the legacy he leaves behind.

Why has Libya fallen apart since 2011? The world has largely given up trying to understand how the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi has left the country a failed state and a major security headache for Europe. Gaddafi's police state has been replaced by yet another dictatorship, amidst a complex conflict of myriad armed groups, Islamists, tribes, towns and secularists. What happened? One of few foreign journalists to have lived in post-revolution Tripoli, Ulf Laessing has unique insight into the violent nature of post-Gaddafi politics. Confronting threats from media-hostile militias and jihadi kidnappings, in a world where diplomats retreat to their compounds and guns are drawn at government press conferences, Laessing has kept his ear to the ground and won the trust of many key players. Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is an original blend of personal anecdote and nuanced Libyan history. It offers a much-needed diagnosis of why war has erupted over a desert nation of just 6 million, and of how the country blessed with Africa's greatest energy reserves has been reduced to state collapse.

To be a tourist in Libya during the period of Italian colonization was to experience a complex negotiation of cultures. Against a sturdy backdrop of indigenous culture and architecture, modern metropolitan culture brought its systems of transportation and accommodation, as well as new hierarchies of political and social control. Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya shows how Italian authorities used the contradictory forces of tradition and modernity to both legitimize their colonial enterprise and construct a vital tourist industry. Although most tourists sought to escape the trappings of the metropole in favor of experiencing "difference," that difference was almost always framed, contained, and even defined by Western culture. McLaren argues that the "modern" and the "traditional" were entirely constructed by colonial authorities, who balanced their need to project an image of a modern and efficient network of travel and accommodation with the necessity of preserving the characteristic qualities of the indigenous culture. What made the tourist experience in Libya distinct from that of other tourist destinations was the constant oscillation between modernizing and preservation tendencies. The movement between these forces is reflected in the structure of the book, which proceeds from the broadest level of inquiry into the Fascist colonial project in Libya to the tourist organization itself, and finally into the architecture of the tourist environment, offering a way of viewing state-driven modernization projects and notions of modernity from a historical and geographic perspective. This is an important book for architectural historians and for those interested in colonial and postcolonial studies, as well as Italian studies, African history, literature, and cultural studies more generally.

Women in the Modern History of Libya features histories of Libyan women exploring the diversity of cultures, languages and memories of Libya from the age of the Empires to the present. The chapters explore a series of institutional and private archives inside and outside Libya, illuminating historical trajectories marginalised by colonialism, nationalism and identity politics. They provide engaging and critical exploration of the archives of the Ottoman cities, of the colonial forces of Italy, Britain and the US, and of the Libyan resistance – the Mawsūʻat riwāyāt al-jihād (Oral Narratives of the Jihād) collection at the Libyan Studies Center of Tripoli – as well as of the private records in the homes of Jewish and Amazigh Libyans across the world. Developing the tools of women’s and gender studies and engaging with the multiple languages of Libya, contributors raise a series of critical questions on the writing of history and on the representation of Libyan people in the past and the present. Illuminating the sheer diversity of histories, memories and languages of Libya, Women in the Modern History of Libya will be of great interest to scholars of North Africa; women’s and gender history; memory in history; cultural studies; and colonialism. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of North African Studies.