ABSTRACT
Libya is a relatively new state situated on a land that has been conquered, occu-
pied, and administered by outsiders for centuries. The ancient Egyptians applied
the name Libya to a desert people living beyond their western frontier, and the
early Greeks applied it to all non-Punic Africans living west of the Egyptian
border. From the time of the Punic Wars, both Greeks and the Romans applied
the term “Libya” to Africans living on Carthaginian territory. When Italy invaded
in 1911, it applied the name “Libya” to the provinces of the Ottoman Empire
it targeted for occupation as part of a policy aimed at justifying its aggression
by linking it to the former North African territories of the Roman Empire. No
one applied the term “Libya” to what is now the Great Socialist People’s Libyan
Arab Jamahiriya before the last century, and the Italians did not do so in a formal
sense until 1929, when the separately administered territories of Tripolitania,
Cyrenaica, and Fezzan were joined under a single governor. Following inde-
pendence in 1951, the United Kingdom of Libya became the Kingdom of Libya
in 1963, the Libyan Arab Republic in 1969, the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya in 1977, and the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya at a
later date. For the sake of convenience, the country generally will be referred to
as Libya throughout this book.
