Horace Campbell – författare

The recent debate on the consequences of structural adjustment for developing economies, which took place between the World Bank and the United Nation's Economic Commission on Africa, underlines the need for further investigation of this important economic strategy. Tanzania, which for a decade had stood as a symbol of opposition to the Internation

The recent debate on the consequences of structural adjustment for developing economies, which took place between the World Bank and the United Nation's Economic Commission on Africa, underlines the need for further investigation of this important economic strategy. Tanzania, which for a decade had stood as a symbol of opposition to the Internation

When the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings erupted in Africa, in the first two months of the year 2011, with the chant, ''the people want to bring down the regime'', there was hope all over the continent that these rebellions were part of a wider African Awakening. President Ben Ali of Tunisia was forced to step down and fled to Saudi Arabia. Within a month of Ben Ali''s departure, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was removed from power by the people, who mobilised a massive revolutionary movement in the country. Four days after the ousting of Mubarak, sections of the Libyan people rebelled in Benghazi. Within days, this uprising was militarised, with armed resistance countered by declarations from the Libyan leadership vowing to use raw state power to root out the rebellion. The first Libyan demonstrations occurred on February 15, 2011, but by February 21 there were reports that innocent civilians were in imminent danger of being massacred by the army. This information was embellished by reports of the political leadership branding the rebellious forces as ''rats''.

In this elegantly written and incisive account, scholar Horace Campbell investigates the political and economic crises of the early twenty-first century through the prism of NATO's intervention in Libya. He traces the origins of the conflict, situates it in the broader context of the Arab Spring uprisings, and explains the expanded role of a post-Cold War NATO. This military organization, he argues, is the instrument through which the capitalist class of North America and Europe seeks to impose its political will on the rest of the world, however warped by the increasingly outmoded neoliberal form of capitalism. The intervention in Libya-characterized by bombing campaigns, military information operations, third party countries, and private contractors-exemplifies this new model. Campbell points out that while political elites in the West were quick to celebrate the intervention in Libya as a success, the NATO campaign caused many civilian deaths and destroyed the nation's infrastructure. Furthermore, the instability it unleashed in the forms of militias and terrorist groups has only begun to be reckoned with, as the United States learned when its embassy was attacked and personnel, including the ambassador, were killed. This lucid study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex and weighty course of events.

The recent debate on the consequences of structural adjustment for developing economies, which took place between the World Bank and the United Nation''s Economic Commission on Africa, underlines the need for further investigation of this important economic strategy. Tanzania, which for a decade had stood as a symbol of opposition to the Internation

The recent debate on the consequences of structural adjustment for developing economies, which took place between the World Bank and the United Nation''s Economic Commission on Africa, underlines the need for further investigation of this important economic strategy. Tanzania, which for a decade had stood as a symbol of opposition to the Internation