THE LIBYAN is a captivating memoir sweeping four continents and several decades on a journey of passion, terror, and betrayal. It puts a face on the lives and culture of Libya and Libyans during the early years of the ruthless dictator, Muammar Ghaddafi. It is the story of Kamal, a reluctant member of Ghaddafi's inner circle, and his American wife, bound together by passion and fate. When they return to begin a new life in Libya, they find themselves in a country terrorized by random arrests and public hangings. Driven by his longing for a better Libya, Kamal struggles to survive politically, while his wife lives in fear of her husband being arrested or killed. As Ghaddafi transformed the richest nation in Africa into the most repressed and brutalized country in the Arab world, Kamal battles to realize his dream for Libya's future, but soon becomes a target of the dreaded secret police. Forced to leave his beloved Libya and hunted by rogue CIA and Libyan agents in the United States, he joins a group of elite Libyan dissidents to establish the most powerful of all the opposition parties, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. In the end, The Libyan has to choose between the woman he loves and his obsession to overthrow Ghaddafi. ""Kofod is a brilliant observer of detail and perceptive in her descriptions of character... Her love for Libya is evident and she presented a vivid account of its modern history through the eyes of Lina and Kamal." -Libya TV (English)" ""The Libyan offers a unique perspective on living under one of the worst dictatorships of the 20th century...Kofod fluently weaves a tale of romance with her own observations of Libya to produce this gripping novel." -Tripoli Post, Libya" ""Ms. Kofod has a strong voice and a heck of a story which she tells with integrity and feeling." -Ethan Chorin, Author Translating Libya"

This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each group is told by the authors, based on reportage and expert analysis, from the outbreak of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 through to the transitional period following the end of fighting in October 2011. They describe the emergence of Libya's new politics through the unique stories of those who made it happen, or those who fought against it. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath brings together leading journalists, academics, and specialists, each with extensive field experience amidst the constituencies they depict, drawing on interviews with fighters, politicians and civil society leaders who have contributed their own account of events to this volume.

Politieke biografie van de Libische leider (geb. ca. 1942)

This book delivers a thorough and essential analysis of current economic policy, transformation and legislative changes in Libya. The authors answer many questions about Libya’s distinctive society and economic system and explain the necessity for the major restructuring of the Libyan economy which is currently in process. The book makes extensive use of previously unavailable economic and social data and thus allows a unique insight into a fascinating country.

Although Libya and its current leader have been the subject of numerous accounts, few have considered how the country's tumultuous history, its institutional development, and its emergence as an oil economy combined to create a state whose rulers ignored the notion of modern statehood. International isolation and a legacy of internal turmoil have destroyed or left undocumented much of what researchers might seek to examine. Dirk Vandewalle supplies a detailed analysis of Libya's political and economic development since the country's independence in 1951, basing his account on fieldwork in Libya, archival research in Tripoli, and personal interviews with some of the country's top policymakers. Vandewalle argues that Libya represents an extreme example of what he calls a "distributive state," an oil-exporting country where an attempt at state-building coincided with large inflows of capital while political and economic institutions were in their infancy. Libya's rulers eventually pursued policies that were politically expedient but proved economically ruinous, and disenfranchised local citizens. Distributive states, according to Vandewalle, may appear capable of resisting economic and political challenges, but they are ill prepared to implement policies that make the state and its institutions relevant to their citizens. Similar developments can be expected whenever local rulers do not have to extract resources from their citizens to fund the building of a modern state.

This volume is in many ways the culmination of the author's long involvement with Libya, tracing its history from pre-historic times through the revolutionary Qadhafi regime that consolidated its rule after 1969. Meticulously researched, the different chapters provide analytic summaries of each historic period.

The world watched as the bud of the Arab Spring was buried under the cold darkness of the Libyan Winter.