BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTE RENDUS 395 John Wright, The Emergence of Libya: Selected Historical Essays (London: Silphium Press, 2008) To long-time Libya observers the articles and books of the former BBC Arabic Service commentator, John Wright, have been familiar touchstones in a field where dispassionate and careful analysis have often been missing. The author of an earlier, still highly respected history of the country, Wright’s writings on Libya over the years have ranged far and wide, both in terms of topics he has commented on regarding political and economic development inside Libya, as well as regarding the historical periods he deftly summarized in his work. The Emergence of Libya represents a cornucopia of 21 chapters dealing mostly with historical material related to developments during the last two centuries inside what eventually became the kingdom of Libya in 1951. All have been published previously in a wide array of journals and magazines, but have been brought together here in a single volume that highlights once more the breath and understanding the author possesses about Libya. As Wright himself acknowledges in the preface, these different contributions reflect his particular interests. His sensibilities, as a journalist and broadcaster, differ somewhat from those in the academic world who have been writing about Libya. The chapters reflect the different styles of the original sources where they were published, unfortunately introducing a note of unevenness that could easily have been corrected before publication, and one that will particularly strike academic readers of the book as somewhat problematic, particularly as a growing consensus on correct transliteration and other conventions has emerged. In effect, most of the chapters, with minor exceptions, are verbatim reprints of the originals, and for most close observers of Libya will provide a fascinating look at how our understanding of the country has somehow changed across the last few decades, due in part to Wright’s writings. But what the chapters also reveal, particularly those on the Sanusi movement and on the period of the kingdom of Libya (1951-69), is how relatively little our knowledge of these aspects of Libyan history has changed since Wright published his contributions sometimes almost four decades ago. Inadvertently the disastrous legacy of the revolutionary regime after 1969, particularly its decision to rewrite Libyan history while ignoring and refusing to allow research on certain periods of the country’s political and economic development, is brought to life by Wright’s book. This intellectual shadow of the past is one that Libya has not yet come to terms with and, in the absence of meaningful recent research on Libya’s history in the 20th century and particularly since its independence in 1951, these chapters remain valuable, if somewhat dated, contributions. Fortunately, the country’s history since 2003 has indicated a reluctant and agonizingly slow process of re-emerging scholarship that perhaps will deliver in due time more nuanced and better documented treatments of Libya’s history. Until then, 396 BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTE RENDUS Wright’s contributions grouped together in this volume will remain valuable insights into a country notoriously hard to study or comprehend. The volume consists of six sets of chapters, each grouped around a thematic interest or historical period. The first relates, as its title indicates, to the country’s historical background, focusing on the Sanusi and Libya’s slow encounter with Europe in the 19th century. It is followed by four chapters that describe the interaction between local inhabitants of what eventually became Libya and Europeans who for one reason or another resided in or travelled through Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. It includes a chapter on the travels of Nahum Slouschz, a member of Libya’s Jewish community, during the early part of the 20th century. After several chapters on the slave trade (which traversed Libyan territory) Wright then turns toward the Italian colonial period (1911-43), with several delightful chapters on subjects ranging from Ahmad al-Sharif to Gabriel D’Annuncio, and on to Mussolini’s attempt to portray himself as the protector of Islam in Libya. Much of this material will be familiar to close readers of Libyan matters, but nevertheless provides a good synopsis of how colonizer and colonized viewed each other as...
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Jun 22, 2024
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