"The question of civil society in the Islamic world and the relationship of state to society in the pre-colonial era is coming to be a central concern in the field. I think this book targets very well many concerns both in English-language and Arabic-language historiography about what we know of the 'pre-modern' or at least pre-colonial world. This book has an important contribution to make to contemporary academic and political discourse." -- Ellis Goldberg, University of Washington
"The scholarship is very good. Few scholars are able to use Arabic, French, English, and Italian at such a level. A second major plus is the way the author seeks to integrate the political history of Libya with its social and economic history, and to use this as a framework for discussing Libyan anti-colonial resistance over the whole period, 1830-1932. There is no other work which has this range and ambition, and this will make a useful addition to our knowledge of modern Libyan history." -- Edmund Burke III, University of California, Santa Cruz