Understanding Somalia and Somaliland (2008) by I. M. Lewis: a short introduction to culture, history and society

The book

Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society is by Ioan M. Lewis (1930 to 2014), emeritus professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the British Academy, who studied Somali society for more than five decades. Hurst published it in London in August 2008. The paperback has 176 pages in all, with about 139 pages of main text (Hurst; Leeds African Studies Bulletin). His earlier books on this site are A Pastoral Democracy and Saints and Somalis.

What is in it

The book is in three parts (Schweitzer Fachinformationen):

• Culture: where Somalis live, migration and the coming of Islam, the traditional clan divisions, family and marriage, religion, the oral heritage of poetry, and how Somalis see themselves as a nation. See Clans and lineage, How Islam reached the Somalis and Somali poetry.
• History: from colonial partition through independence and the campaign to unite all Somali-inhabited lands, to the military and socialist government and its Soviet ties. See Partition, 1884 to 1926 and The Siad Barre era, 1969 to 1991.
• Society and economy: rural institutions, settlement, the livestock trade, and farming communities in the north and south. See Livestock exports.

Later chapters cover the rebirth of Somaliland, international intervention, the transitional governments formed at Arta in 2000 and Mbagathi in 2004, the rise of the Islamic courts in Mogadishu, democracy in Somaliland, and Puntland. The book ends with the Islamist movement that, in Lewis's words, brought "a brief but astonishing period of stability" to much of southern Somalia in late 2006 (Hurst). See Somaliland, 1991 to 2026, Puntland and Islamic Courts Union, 2006.

Its view of Somaliland

Lewis gives special attention to Somaliland. He describes the settling of conflicts there by clan elders as "a truly remarkable achievement", and argues that this home-grown process worked better than the peace process led from outside in the south (Leeds African Studies Bulletin). Some reviewers noted that his position had moved towards strong support for Somaliland's state-building, and that some scholars think his approach makes kinship look more decisive in daily life than it is (Cambridge Core, BSOAS).

How it was received

The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies called it "a concise, authoritative, opinionated and very readable introduction to an enormously complex subject". The Journal of Modern African Studies wrote that Lewis "continues to challenge his academic opponents to come up with an equally readable and sound counter-analysis" (Hurst). Lionel Cliffe, in the Leeds African Studies Bulletin, called it a "small handbook" giving "useful background for outsiders" (Leeds African Studies Bulletin).

Where to read it

The paperback is in print from Hurst and widely held by libraries. A longer account of the same territory is Mark Bradbury's Becoming Somaliland, which Cliffe reviewed alongside it.