Product Review

"At once steeped in detailed contextual knowledge and fully engaged with basic theoretical issues, Lisa Anderson's fine book can serve as an inspiration and a model for all who would push the analysis of state building in relation to social structure well beyond the European settings in which such processes have traditionally been studied. Doing comparative history at its best, Anderson uses a close comparison of Tunisia and Libya to arrive at analytic arguments sure to suggest fruitful leads to students of state formation in many areas of the world." -Theda Skocpol, Harvard University Moving beyond existing Eurocentric theories of state building, this work examines the role of state formation and disintegration in shaping social structure and political organization in Tunisia and Libya between 1830 and 1980. "... an important book. Extensive research has gone into it. Scholars will treasure it. Nonspecialists who tackle it in the hope of learning more about Libya and Tunisia will not be disappointed." -Harry Gregory, The Philadelphia Inquirer "The most recent book on Libya with a broad historic sense and a deep understanding of the subject." -I. William Zartman, The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, in selecting the four top books on Libya for U.S. News & World Report "The accidents of history and geology ... have allowed one contemporary ruler [Qaddafi] to indulge at once the fundamentalist fantasy of direct theocracy and the populist fantasy of direct democracy. The spectacle is not an appealing one. But we must take note of its emergence, and be grateful for the light that Lisa Anderson has cast upon it." -Ernest Gellner, The New Republic Lisa Anderson is Associate Professor of Political Science and Assistant Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. ISBN