ABSTRACT
Violence and Social Transformation in Libya presents groundbreaking research on the experience of post-Qadhafian armed conflict in Libya’s regions. Ibrahim’s contribution excels in conveying local flavor. Stocker and al-Fallani present a comprehensive treatment of the history, social realities, myth-making, and intercommunal struggles in the Fezzan. The book’s final chapter by Thornton invents a novel periodization of international engagement in Libya’s post-2014 wars that explains how a flawed mediation approach elevated rogue armed groups into “legitimate” interlocutors. Despite these strengths, the volume tries to reinvent the wheel by ignoring previous scholarship on state-owned enterprises, militia mapping, or the interplay between armed actors and corruption. Post–October 7, many are now looking down at academics as purveyors of immoral reductionist black and white ideologies. This volume points to a grimmer reality, where the academy has become a place where a sustained multidecade-long conversation among neutral scholars to build up cumulative expertise is no longer valued.
