ABSTRACT
The United Kingdom of Libya was influenced by early twentieth-century efforts at state formation, including the Congress of Aziziyya (1912), the Tripoli Republic (1918), and the Sanusi Amirate (1920), and also by the activities and experiences of Libyan exiles in 1911-51. Once independence was achieved, the United Kingdom of Libya faced a myriad of challenges and difficulties which eventually led to its demise in 1969. The Tripoli Republic was the first formal republican government created in the Arab world, and the first indigenous political entity to emerge in Libya since the overthrow of the Karamanli dynasty in 1835. Libya experienced dramatic socioeconomic and political change even as it brought a measure of stability to the central Mediterranean. The exploitation of Libyan oil deposits by the monarchy proved paradoxical in that it freed Libya from one form of dependence, the income from military bases, only to substitute it for another.
