Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society

Ioan Lewis

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Paper, 208 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70085-6
$26.00

October, 2008
Cloth, 208 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70084-9
$50.00

"This type of essential description and assessment of a culture and a history can come only from an author so permeated by his subject that writing about it flows in the smooth fashion of a natural phenomenon. If there is one clear lesson that emerges from Ioan Lewis's precise and sweeping assessment it is that Somalia is a walking and moving exception to many rules about the nation-state. Required reading for anyone dealing with Somalia, from diplomats and journalists to NGOs and members of the United Nations." — Gérard Prunier, author of The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide

"A sober guide to . . . why Somalia is much more complicated than most foreigners and diplomats pretend, is Ioan Lewis of the London School of Economics—Britain's, if not the world's, foremost expert on that country. His Understanding Somalia and Somaliland is an excellent short introduction to the tribal, geographic, and historical complexities of a place he has studied, lived in, and visited for several decades." — Carne Ross, New Statesman

Related Subjects

• African Studies

About the Author

Ioan Lewis is professor emeritus of anthropology at the London School of Economics and author of Arguments with Ethnography: Comparative Approaches to History, Politics, and Religion.

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