Reading List

Below is a bibliography of works on post-2011 Libya written in English, curated from the recommendations of the leading scholars on the subject. It is not meant to be completely exhaustive and at present largely excludes sources on the period before the revolution. In the future, such sources may be included under a different tab along with additional references in Arabic, Italian, and French.

*For those looking for a more concise overview, the three most consistently recommended books on this list were:

  • Wehrey, Frederic M.. The Burning Shores: Inside the Battle for the New Libya.
  • Cole, Peter, and Brian McQuinn. The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath.
  • Pack, Jason. The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future.

Last Updated: 5 August 2021

Abou-Khalil, Naji, and Laurence Hargreaves. 2015. Perceptions of Security in Libya: Institutional and Revolutionary Actors. Peace Works. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute for Peace.

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. 2005. Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. 2009. The Making of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colonization, and Resistance. Second. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press.

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. 2012. “Libya, Social Origins of Dictatorship, and the Challenge for Democracy.” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 3: 70–81.

Ahram, Ariel I. Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Ahram, Ariel I. “Separatism, the Arab uprisings and the legacies of lost territorial autonomy.” Territory, Politics, Governance, (2018): 1-21.

Ahram, Ariel I. “Territory, Sovereignty, and New Statehood in the Middle East and North Africa.” The Middle East Journal, 71.3 (2017): 345-362.

Ali, Ahmed Salah. 2017. Haftar and Salafism: A Dangerous Game. MENASource. Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Council.

Aliriza, Fadil. “Libya’s Unarmed Revolutionaries: Civil society groups face an uphill battle in a society dominated by militias.” Foreign Policy. 16 August 2013: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/16/libyas-unarmed-revolutionaries/

Altai Consulting, and IMPACT Initiatives. 2017. Mixed Migration Trends in Libya: Changing Dynamics and Protection Challenges. New York, N.Y,: United Nations High Commission on Human Rights.

Al-Warfalli, Ayman, and Aidan Lewis. 2017. “East Libyan Forces Take Desert Air Base as They Push West.” Reuters, Autumn 2017.

Aman, Ayah. 2015. “Egypt Acts as Middleman for Russia-Libya Arms Deal.” Al-Monitor.

Amara, Hani. 2016. “Libyan Forces Clear Last Islamic State Holdout in Sirte.” Reuters, 6 2016.

Amnesty International:

  • 2011a. Detention Abuses Staining the New Libya. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2011b. Libya: Detainees, Disappeared and Missing. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2011c. “Libya: Human Rights Agenda for Change.” London: Amnesty International.
  • 2011d. Libya: Writer Detailed After Calling for Demonstrations. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2011e. The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2012a. Libya: Rule of Law or Rule of Militias. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2012b. Libya: The Forgotten Victims of NATO Strikes. London: Amnesty International.2011a. Detention Abuses Staining the New Libya. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2012c. Militias Threaten Hopes for New Libya. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2012d. “We Are Not Safe Anywhere”: Tawarghas in Libya. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2013a. Amnesty International Condemns Benghazi Bombing Targeting Civilians. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2013b. Barred from Their Homes: The Continued Displacement and Persecution of Tawarghas and Other Communities in Libya. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2013c. Libya: The Day Militias Shot at Protesters. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2014. Libya: Journalist Killed for Denouncing Abuses by Armed Group. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2015a. “Benghazi’s Descent into Chaos: Abductions, Summary Killings, and Other Abuses.”
  • 2015b. Cold-Blooded Murder of Copts in Libya a War Crime. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2015c. Libya: Four Arrested Amid Fears of Amazigh Culture Crackdown. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2015d. “Libya Is Full of Cruelty”: Stories of Abduction, Sexual Violence and Abuse from Migrants and Refugees. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2015e. “Vanished off the Face of the Earth”: Abducted Civilians in Libya. AI Index. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2016. Amnesty International Report 2015/16. London: Amnesty International.
  • 2017. Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights. London: Amnesty International.

Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve. 2007. Off the Record: U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War on Terror.” New York, N.Y.: Human Rights Watch.

Anderson, Lisa. “‘They Defeated Us All’: International Interests, Local Politics, and Contested Sovereignty in Libya.” Middle East Journal.Volume 71, Number 2, Spring 2017. doi: 10.3751/71.2.13

Anderson, Scott. 2017. Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart. New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books.

Ash, Timothy Garton. 2011. “Libya’s Escalating Drama Reopens the Case for Liberal Intervention.” The Guardian, Autumn 2011.

Ashour, Omar. 2011. “Post-Jihadism: Libya and the Global Transformations of Armed Islamist Movements.” Terrorism and Political Violence 23 (3): 377–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2011.560218.

Ashour, Omar. 2012. Libyan Islamists Unpacked: Rise, Transformation, and Future. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Associated Press. 2016a. “Libya Officials: French Special Forces on Ground Fighting IS.” The New York Times, 24 2016.

Associated Press. 2016b. “UK Troops to Advise Tunisia on Halting Libya Border Breaches,” 29 2016.

Associated Press. 2016c. “US Launches Airstrikes Targeting IS in Libya.” The New York Times, Spring 2016.

Baldinetti, Anna. 2010. The Origins of the Libyan Nation: Colonial Legacy, Exile, and the Emergence of a New Nation-State. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Baldinetti, Anna (2018) “Languages in Libya: building blocks of national identity and soft power tools,” Journal of North African Studies, 23:3, 418-439, DOI: 10.1080/13629387.2017.1391947

Barah, Mikhail, Civil society and foreign donors in Libya. AFA, Fride and Hivos. 2013: https://knowledge.hivos.org/sites/default/files/publications/wp20foreign20funding20_lybia-11.pdf

Bâli, Asli Ü, and Ziad Abu-Rish. 2011. “On International Intervention and the Dire Situation in Libya.” Jadaliyya.

Bartu, Peter. 2014. Libya’s Political Transition: The Challenges of Mediation. New York, N.Y.: International Peace Institute.

Bassiouni, M. Cherif. 2013. Libya: From Repression to Revolution: A Record of Armed Conflict and International Law Violations, 2011-2013. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Baum, Matthew A., and Yuri M. Zhukov. 2015. “Filtering Revolution: Reporting Bias in International Newspaper Coverage of the Libyan Civil War.” Journal of Peace Research 52 (3): 384–400. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343314554791.

Beaumont, Peter, and Martin Chulov. 2011. “Revulsion as Gaddafi Sets His Army on Libyan People: Snipers Fire on Unarmed Protesters.” The Observer, 20 2011.

Bell, Anthony, Spencer Butts, and David Witter. 2011. The Libyan Revolution: The Tide Turns. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of War.

Bell, Anthony, and David Witter. 2011a. The Libyan Revolution: Roots of Rebellion. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of War.

Bell, Anthony, and David Witter. 2011b. The Libyan Revolution: Stalemate and Siege. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of War.

Bellodi, Leonardo. “Libya’s Assets and the Question of Sovereignty.” Survival, 54.2 (2012): 39-45 

Bini, Elisabetta. 2018. “Building an Oil Empire: Labor and Gender Relations in American Company Towns in Libya, 1950s–1970s.” In Working for Oil: Comparative Social Histories of Labor in the Global Oil Industry, edited by Elisabetta Bini, Touraj Atabaki, and Kaveh Ehsani, 313–36. New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan.

Binnie, Jeremy. 2016. “UAE’s Forward Operating Base in Libya Revealed.” Jane’s 360.

Blanchard, Christopher M. 2016. Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service.

Capasso, Matteo, and Igor Cherstich. “The Libyan Event and the Part for the Whole.” Middle East Critique, Special Issue, Vol. 23, Issue 4, 2014.

Capasso, Matteo, and Igor Cherstich, “The Multiple Narratives of the Libyan Revolution,” Middle East Critique, Special Issue, Vol. 23, Issue 4, 2014.

Capasso, Matteo and Karim Mezran, “The Idea of the Islamic state in Libyan Politics Since Independence,” Storia del Pensiero Politico, 3 (2014) 

Carlisle, Jessica. “We Woke Up and Everything Had Gone to Qadhafi”, Middle East Law and Governance 6, 2: 93-122, doi:10.1163/18763375-00602002

Cherstich, Igor, “The Body of the Colonel – Caricature and Incarnation in the Libyan Revolution,” The Political Aesthetics of Global Protest – the Arab Spring and Beyond, P. Werbner, M. Webb & K. Spellman (Eds.), 93-120. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2014.

Cherstich, Igor, “Libya’s revolution: tribe, nation, politics,” Open Democracy, 3 October, 2011: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/libyas-revolution-tribe-nation-politics/

Cherstich, Igor, “Religious Violence in Libya: Who Is to Blame?” Huffpost, 5 December, 2012: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/religious-violence-in-lib_b_2245265

Chivvis, Christopher S., and Jeffrey Martini. Libya After Qaddafi: Lessons and Implications for the Future. Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 2014.

Chivvis, Christopher S.. Toppling Qaddafi: Libya and the Limits of Liberal Intervention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Chorin, Ethan Daniel. Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution. New York: PublicAffairs, 2012.

Cole, Peter, and Brian McQuinn. The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Cole, Peter, and Fiona Mangan.  Tribe, Security, Justice and Peace in Libya Today. Peaceworks. No. 118. 2016:  https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW118-Tribe-Security-Justice-and-Peace-in-Libya-Today.pdf

Eaton, Tim, Libya’s War Economy: Predation, Profiteering and State Weakness. Chatham House, 12 April 2018: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/libyas-war-economy-predation-profiteering-and-state-weakness#

El Issawi, Fatima. Libya Media Transition: Heading to the Unknown. London School of Economics, POLIS—Media and Communications Report.  2013: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59906/1/El-Issawi_Libya-media-transition_2013_pub.pdf

El Issawi, Fatima, “Libyan Transnational Media: Free at Last?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. May 2013:   https://carnegieendowment.org/2013/05/14/transitional-libyan-media-free-at-last-pub-51747

European Union Institute for Security Studies. The Arab democratic wave: How the EU can seize the moment. Álvaro de Vasconcelos (eds.). ISS, EU. No. 9. March 2011: https://www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUISSFiles/Report_9_0.pdf

Fitzgerald,  Mary, & Tarek Megerisi. Libya: Whose Land is it? Property Rights and Transition. Legatum Institute: Transitions Forum (2015).

Forte, Maximilian C. Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War On Libya and Africa. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2012.

Fraihat, Ibrahim. Unfinished Revolutions: Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia After the Arab Spring. New Haven, Connecticut: London, England : Yale University Press, 2016.

Gaub, Florence. Libya: the struggle for security. Paris, European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS): 2013.

Hauslohner, Abigail. “Libyan oil at heart of conflict with roots in country’s east.” Washington Post. 12 April 2014: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/libyan-oil-at-heart-of-conflict-with-roots-in-countrys-east/2014/04/12/585f4829-0fd3-410d-a956-6927f57feb90_story.html?utm_term=.517e528ab221

Henriksen, Dag, and A. K. Larssen. 2016. Political rationale and international consequences of the war in Libya. Oxofrd, Oxford University Press: 2016.

Hilsum, Lindsey. Sandstorm: Libya From Gaddafi to Revolution. Paperback edition with new chapter. London: Faber and Faber, 2013.

Human Rights Watch. “Libya: Amend New Special Procedures Law: Reject Impunity for Serious Crimes.” HRW. 11 May 2012: https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/11/libya-amend-new-special-procedures-law

Human Rights Watch. Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Causalities in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya. HRW Report. 2012: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya0512webwcover.pdf

Hüsken, Thomas, “The Practice and Culture of Smuggling in the Borderland of Egypt and Libya,” in: Raffaella del Sarto & Asli Oykay (eds.), Contentious Borders: Sovereignty and Statehood in the Middle East and North Africa post-2011, Foreign Affairs (Special Issue) 2017, 897-915.

Hüsken, Thomas, “Tribal Political Culture and the Revolution in the Cyrenaica of Libya.” In: Orient, German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture of The Middle East, I/2012. 26-31.

Hüsken, Thomas. Tribal Politics in the Borderland of Egypt and Libya. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Hüsken, Thomas  & Georg Klute 2015, Political Orders in the Making: Emerging Forms of Political Organization from Libya to Northern Mali, African Security, 8:4, 320-337.

International Crisis Group (ICG): [by most recent]

Joffé, George. “Chaos in the Sahel.” Open Democracy, 25 September 2012: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/chaos-in-sahel/

Joffé, George. “Civil Resistance in Libya during the Arab Spring.” Civil resistance in the Arab Spring: triumphs and disasters. Roberts, Adam, Willis, Michael J., McCarthy, Rory, and Garton Ash, Timothy (eds.). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2016. 116-140.

Joffé, George. North Africa’s Arab Spring. London: Routledge, 2012.

Joffé, George (ed.). Islamist Radicalisation in North Africa: Politics and Process. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.

Kohl, Ines. “Libya’s ‘Major Minorities’. Berber, Tuareg and Tebu: Multiple Narratives of Citizenship, Language and Border Control.” Middle East Critique, 23.4 (2014)

Lacher, Wolfram, and al-Idrissi, Alaa, Capital of Militias: Armed Groups Capture the Libyan State, Small Arms Survey, Briefing Paper, June 2018: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-SANA-BP-Tripoli-armed-groups.pdf

Lacher, Wolfram, “Libya’s Conflicts Enter a Dangerous New Phase,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Comment 2019/C 08, February 2019, 4 Pages, doi:10.18449/2019C08

Lacher, Wolfram, “Libya: Getting Serious about Negotiations: How a New Political Process Could Help Tackle Security Challenges,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Comment 2018/C 39, September 2018, 7 Pages

Lacher, Wolfram. “Libya’s local elites and the politics of alliance building.” Mediterranean Politics 21.1 (2016)   

Lacher, Wolfram, “Tripoli’s Militia Cartel: How Ill-Conceived Stabilisation Blocks Political Progress, and Risks Renewed War,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Comment 2018/C 20, April 2018, 4 Pages

Lippert, Barbara, von Ondarza, Nicolai, and  Perthes, Volker (eds.), “European Strategic Autonomy: Actors, Issues, Conflicts of Interests,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Research Paper 2019/RP 04, March 2019, 39 Pages, doi:10.18449/2019RP04

Matar, Hisham. The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between. New York: Random House, 2016.

Mercy Corps, and The Governance Network. Beyond Gaddafi: Libya’s Governance Context. August 2011: https://www.mercycorps.org/sites/default/files/capacity_to_govern-libya_26_aug_2011.pdf

Mezran, Karim. Libya’s Choice: National Reconciliation or Chaos. Atlantic Council. 20 August 2012: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/libya-s-choice-national-reconciliation-or-chaos

Mühlberger, Wolfgang. “Egypt’s Foreign and Security Policy in Post-R2P Libya.” The International Spectator, 51.2 (2016): 99-112   

Mundy, Jacob. Libya. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2018.

Nashed, Mat, “Militants target civil activists in Libya.” Al-Monitor. 29 October 2014: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/libya-militias-kidnapping-youth-civil-activists.html

Pack, Jason, Karim Mezran, and Mohamed Eliharh. 2014. Libya’s Faustian bargains: breaking the appeasement cycle. Washington D.C.. Atlantic Council. 2014: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Libyas_Faustian_Bargains.pdf.

Pack, Jason. The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Pargeter, Alison. Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

Perroux, Jean-Louis Romanet. Libya’s Untold Story: Civil Society Amid Chaos. Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Policy Brief, No. 93. May 2015: https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB93.pdf

Sands, Philippe. “The Accomplice.” Vanity Fair, 22 August 2011: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/08/qaddafi-201108

Seeberg, Peter, “EU Strategic Interests in Post-Qadhafi Libya: Perspectives for Cooperation,” Middle East Policy Council. Vol. XXI, No. 1: https://www.mepc.org/eu-strategic-interests-post-qadhafi-libya-perspectives-cooperation

Shaw, Mark, and Mangan, Fiona. “Enforcing ‘Our Law’ When the State Breaks Down: The Case of Protection Economies in Libya and Their Political Consequences.” Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 7 (1): 99–110. 2015.  doi:10.1007/s40803-015-0008-4.

Shaw, Mark, and Mangan, Fiona. Illicit trafficking and Libya’s transition: profits and losses. Peaceworks, no. 96. 2014: http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo57927.

Talmon, Stefan. “De-recognition of Colonel Qaddafi as Head of State of Libya?” International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 60.03 (2011): 759-767

Vorrath, Judith, “Organized Crime on the UN Security Council Agenda: Action against Human Trafficking Reveals Opportunities and Challenges,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Comment 2018/C 38, September 2018, 4 Pages

Wehrey, Frederic, and Lacher, Wolfram, “The Wrong Way to Fix Libya: Early Elections Would Be a Disaster,” Foreign Affairs, 19 June 2018: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2018-06-19/wrong-way-fix-libya

Wehrey, Frederic M.. The Burning Shores: Inside the Battle for the New Libya. First edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

Weighill, Rob, and Florence Gaub. The Cauldron: NATO’s Campaign in Libya. London: Hurst and Company, 2018.