'By explaining the mosaic of Libya's various sub-national loyalties and identities and their origins, The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath provides a useful antidote to day-to-day media coverage, which sometimes reduces Libyan political disputes to a binary struggle between Islamists and secularists, or East and West, or to tribal differences. It underlines the difficulty of forging a new political and economic framework that recognizes these differences but channels them into a pluralistic and tolerant vision.'
The Times Literary Supplement
'... a timely acknowledgment that Libya's chemistry is older than the laboratory Qaddafi fashioned. The book traces not only the colonel's demise, as many others have done, but the appearance of a lesser-known new cast. Written almost entirely by foreign experts, some of whom know the different factions intimately, it is the most detailed account I have read of the old forces shaping new Libya.'
Nicholas Pelham, New York Review of Books
'This is an important book that deserves a wide readership. With more than a dozen books published on the Libyan revolution, this is the first in which the contributors share extensive professional experience, a thorough knowledge of the literature, and recent fieldwork in Libya. The result is a detailed, nuanced account of the revolution and its aftermath.'
Ronald Bruce St John, author Libya: Continuity and Change and Libya: From Colony to Revolution
'The most complete picture we have yet had of the Libyan revolution and its aftermath ... a compelling and troubling read.'
Justin Marozzi, The National
'Libya's revolution was a complex story of multiple uprisings from geographically, ideologically and tribally distinct areas...Cole and McQuinn's contributors offer compelling narratives that portray the main actors and the rivalries within and between each of these camps.'
Survival journal