Product Description
Liberia Diplomatic Handbook (World Business, Investment and Government Library) ... Read more

Product Description

Liberia, a small West African country that has been wracked by violence and civil war since 1989, seems a paradoxical place in which to examine questions of democracy and popular participation. Yet Liberia is also the oldest republic in Africa, having become independent in 1847 after colonization by an American philanthropic organization as a refuge for "Free People of Color" from the United States. Many analysts have attributed the violent upheaval and state collapse Liberia experienced in the 1980s and 1990s to a lack of democratic institutions and long-standing patterns of autocracy, secrecy, and lack of transparency. Liberia: The Violence of Democracy is a response, from an anthropological perspective, to the literature on neopatrimonialism in Africa.

Mary H. Moran argues that democracy is not a foreign import into Africa but that essential aspects of what we in the West consider democratic values are part of the indigenous African traditions of legitimacy and political process. In the case of Liberia, these democratic traditions include institutionalized checks and balances operating at the local level that allow for the voices of structural subordinates (women and younger men) to be heard and be effective in making claims. Moran maintains that the violence and state collapse that have beset Liberia and the surrounding region in the past two decades cannot be attributed to ancient tribal hatreds or neopatrimonial leaders who are simply a modern version of traditional chiefs. Rather, democracy and violence are intersecting themes in Liberian history that have manifested themselves in numerous contexts over the years.

Moran challenges many assumptions about Africa as a continent and speaks in an impassioned voice about the meanings of democracy and violence within Liberia.

Product Description
Foreign policy, domestic policy, political system and parties, government and administrative structure, international activity and more. Updated annually ... Read more

Product Description
Elections have been used as a mechanism to institutionalize a new political order following internal conflict in Cambodia, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia, and now Liberia. This book analyzes the Liberian transition and the July 1997 elections in order to better understand the relationship between war termination and transitions to democracy and the role post-conflict elections play in promoting both of these goals. The Liberian elections represented the final stage of a seven-year, West African-led peace process. An overwhelming majority voted for former factional leader Charles Taylor in the belief that if Taylor did not win, war would erupt again. The Liberian transition demonstrates that post-conflict elections may play an important role in a process of war termination. In many cases, it may be necessary to move forward with war termination and "imperfect" elections in the short run and pursue goals relating to democratization after the new government has been put in place.This study uses a detailed examination of the difficult Liberian case to highlight the more general challenges of helping countries make the transition from civil conflict and authoritarian rule to peace and democracy. Terrence Lyons is a fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution and coauthor of Somalia: State Collapse, Multilateral Intervention, and Strategies for Political Reconstruction (Brookings, 1995) and Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Brookings, 1996). During 1997 he served as senior program advisor and Monrovia office director of the Carter Center's Liberia Election Project. Studies in Foreign Policy ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Impressive work
This is an extremely well researched book and a tremendous contribution to academics in the field of peace studies as well as to practicioners who are involved in brokering peace deals between warring factions. ... Read more

Product Description

"Outstanding. . . .A model of lucid writing, thorough research, and penetrating interpretation, this is one of the best books on Africa in recent years."
—Foreign Affairs

"No other available account of the civil war is as concise, accurate, or lucid."
—Christian Scholar's Review

"Cogently argued and supported by a wealth of observation"
—Times Literary Supplement

Liberia has been one of Africa's most violent trouble spots. In 1990, when thousands of teenage fighters, including young men wearing women's clothing and bizarre objects of decoration, laid siege to the capital, the world took notice. Since then Liberia has been through devastating civil upheaval. What began as a civil conflict, has spread to other West African nations.

Eschewing popular stereotypes and simple explanations, Stephen Ellis traces the history of the civil war that has blighted Liberia in recent years and looks at its political, ethnic and cultural roots. He focuses on the role religion and ritual have played in shaping and intensifying this brutal war. In this edition, with a new preface by the author, Ellis provides a current picture of Liberia and details how much of the same problems still exist.

Customer Reviews (5)

Liberia's Civil War
Stephen Ellis's book is a fascinating exploration of the little known (to Westerners) history of the Liberian civil war. From 1989 to 1997 war raged across Liberia in West Africa, fuelled by child soldiers wearing women's clothing and wigs for "spiritual protection", while high on marijuana and cane juice. The war was characterised by mindless brutality, relentless looting, and constant quests for greater power provided by spiritual forces, such as through tearing out and eating the hearts of conquered warriors.

The book provides important insights into the causes of violence and war, and it provides a well-researched source of information. However, the content is at times repetitive and some of the author's opinions are puzzling. For example, he seems to consider it politically incorrect to talk about cannibalism, but it is fine to talk about human sacrifice. Both practices have been engaged in extensively by those seeking to obtain power from the spiritual world.

The civil war essentially ended when the most powerful of the warlords, Charles Taylor, defeated the others, thereby obtaining a monopoly on violence and looting. In 1997 he was elected apparently legitimately (the people didn't want him to keep fighting for power), but the war started up again in 2000. Taylor is now on trial for war crimes, and the country is trying to recover from the devastation of the past 25 years.

"Canon of the Liberian War."
In this book, I got important informations that are very inportant in understanding the importiant factors that lead to the Liberian war.I grew up in Liberia and I was affected by the war, all of my experiences and knowledge of the conflict is vividly explained as if I am the writer.
The writer analytical and contextualized informations are needed for every socialogist, pyscholgist and religious to read so that they can get vital informations for properly understanding the issues that led to the Liberian conflict.
This book is simply the best, becuase it is spellbounding! Ihope that all Liberians who will be leaders in any capacity read it. As a theolgian it has help me extremely well because the religious issues in Liberia that he explained in this book cannot be found in Seminaries.

An amazing read
Many people who are interested in Africa have always been disappointed that there are so few books on Liberia.Liberia has such a fascinating history that it is a shame that it has been ignored for so long.A country that was founded by freed American slaves deserves better.The story of the country is indeed bitter and fascinating.Beginning in the 1830s freed American slaves returned to Africaand began to build a state.They tried to transform their state into a replica of the American south, with manor houses and Masonic lodges and even slaves.It took them a great deal of time to pacify the interior and when they were done they had become only 1-2% of the country.But their influence has been lasting.In 1980 however the Whig party government of America-Liberians was overthrown in a coup by Samuel Doe.By 1990 however he was besieged in his palace in Monrovia (named for U.S President Monroe).He was killed soon after in a bloody death which involved his enemies eating part of him on television.Such was the brutality that had descended on Liberia.

This book is not so much a history of the fall of Liberia or of the rise of Chares Taylor, a one time gas station attendant turned `warlord'.It is also a book about people, tribes and religion and custom in Liberia.It is about the heart and soul of Africa and the amazing diversity of the continent and how colonialism left so many things as they were but injected new things and thus created a `mask of Anarchy' that breaks open from time to time and the world says `this is barbaric'( as was the case in Kenya or Rwanda).But it is not barbarism that one is witnessing, but many unresolved issues coming to light.The first half of the book is a story of war and politics and history which follows the end of the Doe regime and the victory of Charles Taylor in the 1990s.Then it examines the military organizations and civilian life of Liberia.It examines the brutality of war and the arms and drug trade in West Africa and the involvement of international and regional (Ecomog for instance) organizations.It also examines the increasing use of boy-soldiers and the use of amputation and rape as weapons.

There follows a fascinating ethnography of Liberia with discussions of the tribal politics and tribal affiliation, such as the Mande, Mel and kruan.There is then an in depth discussion of secret societies and brotherhoods and Poro and Sande, societies or institutions that have been accused of cannibalism.This is, quite simply, one of the most insightful books on Africa that exists, and although it only deals with one country, it reveals a great deal about West Africa and sub-saharan Africa as well.A fascinating read.

Seth J. Frantzman

Those Wacky Liberian Transvestites
One can almost imagine the conversation between Stephen Ellis and his NYUPress editors as they mulled over a title and a marketing scheme for thisbook.Ellis is a scholar of African affairs who, I gather, doesn'ttypically write the sort of book that can be marketed to the non-academicset.Nonetheless, this volume boasts a snappy title, drawn from a PercyByshe Shelley poem, and a striking book jacket photo of three bewiggedLiberian rebels who, like the Liberian civil war itself, manage to appearat once both frightening and farcical.Looks like the editors got theirway.

But, as they say, one shouldn't judge a book by its cover.This isan unapologetically academic tome, with extensive footnotes and afifteen-page bibliography.If you are not of an academic bent, or notseriously curious about the truly unique character of the Liberian civilwar, you might want to skip this book.

But if you are looking for a verygood summation of the Liberian conflict, a primer on ethnicity and religionin Liberia, and an interesting examination of how these factored into theconflict, then this is a must-read.

My most vivid impression is that thisis not so much one book as two separate volumes, one focusing on the waritself, and the other delving into Liberian, history, economics, andanthropology.The first section, on the war itself, is quite well done andvery readable, almost journalistic in tone.Ellis draws from a widevariety of sources, including his own travels to the country, to describeand explain the Liberian civil war and the conditions in which it tookroot.Commendably, he cites Liberian sources whenever possible, thoughthis tendency also raised one of my quibbles.For some reason, hiscitations of things like US Congressional testimony are from Monrovianewspapers rather than the original sources themselves, something I hadbeen taught to avoid, especially when the original sources are soaccessible (just a few mouse clicks away).

Ellis also occasionally fallsinto the trap of providing too much information, seemingly just because hedid the research and wants to use it.For example, he goes on for pagesand pages about the bases of the Nigerian and Ivorian economies by way ofexplaining the economic interests of both countries in the Liberianconflict.He could have summarized this information in much less spacewithout taking anything away from his thesis.

That having been said,Ellis makes some important points about the conflict.One is the tendencyof some analysts, myself included, to be too quick to ascribe ethnic labelsand motivations to the key players.The situation is more complicated thanthat, with clan affiliations, personal ties, and other considerations oftenmore important.He also delves into the unique religious and culturalbackdrop of Liberia to explain some of the seemingly wierd and grotesquepractices that became hallmarks of this conflict -- like the transvestismand ritual cannibalism practiced by some of the combatants.

One can'thelp but conclude that, for all Liberia has been through in the last twentyyears, it still has a long way to go to find some political equilibrium,much less to achieve its promise.Charles Taylor, while more clever andformidable than most of his predecessors in the Executive Mansion, is atleast as brutal and venal as any of them, including the late Samuel Doe. And, sadly, Taylor appears incapable of mending the deep wounds that stillbeset Liberia.No one will be surprised if he, too, is toppled by yetanother self-aggrandizing military man out to plunder the country.Liberiadeserves better.

Liberia Unmasked
The author has drawn on an impressive range of sources to give us an in-depth look at the Liberian civil war.The book is like an onion:the outer later is a description of what happened; the second lays out thehistorical, social and economic framework, and the core discussescontributing psychological and spiritual factors.

Whether or not youaccept his analysis of the role which traditional religious ritual playedin the way in which the war was carried out, the fact remains that theLiberian warlords, most of whom had enough education to know what they weredoing, consciously manipulated young, poor and uneducated soldiers tocommit murder, torture, rape and terror in the interests of seizing powerand the spoils of war.When foreign governments intervened, more oftenthey did more harm than good.There are no heroes in this book.

If thereis a weakness in Ellis's analysis, it is in the period of the 70s and 80s;he gives somewhat cursory attention to the failings of the Tolbert regimewhich led to the 1980 coup and to the dynamics between the Doe governmentand the international community, especially the United States and its shortterm interests in the country.As a result, no meaningful conclusions canbe drawn as to how and when the rapid descent into madness might have beenprevented--despite an acknowledgement that things could have turned outdifferently.This is a minor cavil to an otherwise perceptive study of thenature of the challenges facing Liberia if it is to take up again the taskof nation building. ... Read more

Product Description
Investment, export-import, legal and business opportunities information for conducting business. Business regulations and strategic contacts. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 8784 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Liberia's post-war recovery: key issues and developments.(Report)
Author: Nicolas Cook
Publication: Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs (Report)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: NA

Article Type: Report

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Completely updated and revised for this new edition, our unique electronic book on two CD-ROMs has an amazing collection of the finest federal documents and resources about Liberia, providing encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of the country. This disc set provides a truly fantastic reference source, with over one hundred thousand pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat format! There is complete coverage of newsworthy material about Liberia, including USAID reports (over 10,000 pages), Operation Shining Express, Laura Bush visit to inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, conflict diamonds, international reconstruction conference, Clinton presidency, diplomatic list, African business guide, and moreThis incredible and comprehensive series on the countries of the world contains material from the State Department, Department of Defense, White House, and cabinet agencies including Agriculture, Energy, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.There is complete information about geography, people, government, the economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.In addition to the nation-specific material, as a bonus we have included reports about every country on the globe, with 271 nations, dependent areas, and other entities identified by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA World Factbook is considered an invaluable "world encyclopedia" reference book. ... Read more

Product Description
For seven years, Liberia was involved in a civil war that cost the lives of more than 200,000 people. That war ended on January 31, 1997. Liberia Will Rise Again outlines the causes of the war, interprets the present situation, and offers suggestions for the future. KEY BENEFITS: * Provides a better understanding of the civil war in Liberia * Shows how the Liberians may have contributed to the problem * Helps readers learn about the treatment of refugees * Discusses issues related to the civil war and suggests lessons to be learned from the bitter experience ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A book of amazing hope coming out of devastation
As a Liberian, author Kulah has experience all of the devastation of the seven years of internal war and strife that afflicted his country. He knows first hand capture and threats to him personally. He is one who suffered the loss of many of his friends. There is a reality and accuracy about his writing that gives a good history and background to Liberia. Some of this reality I have also experienced first hand by traveling to Liberia. Midst the devastation of his people, this United Methodist bishop is able to make a profound statement of hope. A must read for anyone who seeks further insight into this troubled land. ... Read more

Product Description
Completely updated and revised for this new edition, our unique electronic book on two CD-ROMs has an amazing collection of the finest federal documents and resources about Liberia, providing encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of the country. This disc set provides a truly fantastic reference source, with over one hundred thousand pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat format! There is complete coverage of newsworthy material about Liberia, including USAID reports (over 10,000 pages), Operation Shining Express, Laura Bush visit to inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, conflict diamonds, international reconstruction conference, Clinton presidency, diplomatic list, African business guide, and more.This incredible and comprehensive series on the countries of the world contains material from the State Department, Department of Defense, White House, and cabinet agencies including Agriculture, Energy, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.There is complete information about geography, people, government, the economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.In addition to the nation-specific material, as a bonus we have included reports about every country on the globe, with 271 nations, dependent areas, and other entities identified by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA World Factbook is considered an invaluable "world encyclopedia" reference book. ... Read more

Product Description
This study begins by characterising the nature of post-Cold War conflicts in Africa. It then considers the military role of the Economic Community of West African States Cease-fire Monitoring Group [ECOMOG] and the relatively new phenomenon of the strategic military involvement of ECOWAS in Sierra Leone and Liberia, given that the function of ECOWAS in the sub-region was designed to be primarily economic. The author assesses the efficacy of armed third party intervention, and some of the technical and legal, political and diplomatic problems and ramifications. He expands his analysis of their implications for the development of a general theory and method of conflict mediation in Africa. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from UN Chronicle, published by United Nations Publications on March 1, 2010. The length of the article is 1053 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: When things fall apart: Liberia shows the way to deal with gender-based violence by establishing special courts and laws to try rapists and through empowering women and girls.
Author: Ruthie Ackerman
Publication: UN Chronicle (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2010
Publisher: United Nations Publications
Volume: 47Issue: 1Page: 46(2)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, published by U.S. Government Printing Office on October 27, 2008. The length of the article is 592 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Remarks following a meeting with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.(Week Ending Friday, October 24, 2008)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Newsletter)
Date: October 27, 2008
Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office
Volume: 44Issue: 42Page: 1376(2)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more