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Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State

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As a Liberian journalist now living in the United States, I can testify that this book is thoroughly researched yet passionately argued. LIBERIA: PORTRAIT OF A FAILED STATE is one of the best books of its kind in recent years. Its author clearly knows and loves Africa -- and loves her enough to tell the truth, no matter how hard...This is a book that deserves to be read and pondered for the important lessons it elucidates for both U.S. foreign policy and African development theory.

The author is not an African, but he has a rare understanding of Africa and Africans that permeates every page. If you're not an African - or maybe you're an African, but have not followed politics much -- you will understand the continent differently after reading this book. The author, a scholar and diplomat, recounts many of the sad, well-known stories of violence and horror. However, he distinguishes himself by arguing the need for Africans to stand up and take responsibility for the endemic problems of their homeland rather than forever waiting for others to bring them solutions. That insight, at once both respectful and provocative, is truly rare.

This book is one of few that tells the complete history of Liberia, a state founded by America as a homeland for former slaves. Although only 3000 slaves immigrated and Americo-Liberians make up only 2.5% of the population of the country today nevertheless the state has been seen as unique in its origins. This book tries tot ell the tale of this `failed state' mostly by exploring the contemporary Doe/Taylor crises. Samuel Doe was the man who assassinated Tolbert's cabinet in 1980 and took power, becoming the countries first indigenous African leader. Charles Taylor was the Americo-Liberian who led a Libyan trained and Leone backed rebel offensive which took the capital in 1990. Liberia had been known as a safe, democratic country worthy of foreign investment, not resembling its neighbors which had a long history of corruption and coups. But today Liberia mirrors the rest of its neighbors and has descended into bloodshed. This book tries to explore the complicated topic of `why?'.

There are several fundamental flaws in this dry read. First and foremost is a total lack of maps or figures. The early history of Liberia was one of its relations with the tribes that occupied the land, the Grebu, Kru and others. This is a history that requires maps to explain. Besides the dearth of maps, there is also no reliable figures showing population, economic or political statistic breakdowns. These types of diagrams would have helped the reader understand the quickly glossed over history of this complicated nation. Nevertheless this remains one of the few studies of this interesting nation.

Seth J. Frantzman

The disturbing tragedy of Liberia's descent from a refuge for the freed slaves and other African-Americans from the Americas into a Reagan-backed cold war dictatorship, violent civil war, and the despotism of a warlord-turned-president (Charles Taylor) is an important lesson about the very real threat that so-called failed states present not only to their own citizens, but to the entire international community. Dr. Pham lucidly narrates this history, uplifting a depressing series of facts with his penetrating analysis. While the account is not easy, it is an eloquent call for reexamining not only U.S. foreign policy with respect to Liberia, but also our perceptions of contemporary African crises in general. If some good might come from the Liberian tragedy, it might be in the salutary lessons that this profound book invites us to learn from one of the twentieth century's forgotten tragedies.

True to form, Professor Pham - who was an influential opponent of the proposed U.S. role in military intervention in Liberia's civil war last year and a critic of this year's intervention in Haiti - paints a cautionary tale about the fallacy of believing that international force can bring lasting peace to persistent conflict regions. While his thesis - that 'each political community must accept responsibility for assuring its own viability' - will strike many as provocative, if not outright cold-hearted, it is this type of provocation that needs to be, at the very least, considered and debated openly in our public policy debates. While the author is clearly no peace activist (I suspect that his self-described adherence to 'national interest realism' might lead him to support the administration in more cases than many others) I cannot help but thinking that had someone proposed a similar argument about the Middle East, perhaps we would not be seeing American soldiers dying daily to do for Iraqis what they clearly are unwilling to do for themselves. Pham's book deserves a wide audience for it provocative thesis (introduced in the Introduction and articulated in the final chapter, "Liberia and the Lessons of a Failed State"), even if the exhaustive case study of West African country presented in the the intervening chapters may appear at first glance to be addressed to a rather limited circle of specialists.

Dr. Pham's book is well-argued and well-informed historical, political, and social narrative. It will be a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and others as the U.S.-sponsored reconstruction of Liberia gets underway. While many will debate the author's policy prescriptions, no one interested in the West African country can ignore this important work, the first account of Liberia for the general reader in a generation.

The author recounts many unpleasant facts. Actually he buries the reader under a mountain of facts and documentation about the conflict in Liberia, so much so that you get the eerie feeling of becoming numb to the violence. That being said, he redeems himself by offering some very solid pearls of wisdom about U.S. foreign policy and how it made, destroyed, and can restore this war-ravaged West African country. I am glad I persevered to the end.

Mr Pham is particularly adept at providing context for the collapse of Liberia. His summaries of the political and social turmoil in neighboring West African states are superb. While these neither explain nor exonerate the unspeakable crimes of Liberian warlord turned President Charles Taylor, they do explain many of the Liberian leaders motivations and excesses, as well as demonstrate that these crimes, like most crimes against humanity, rarely occur in a vaccuum.

In state as advertised. Will do business with this seller again. Book could have been delivered earlier though; I'm going to chalk the delay to the holiday.

Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State is a thorough and thought-provoking look at Liberia's colored history. It follows Liberia's creation as a country for freed American slaves through its subsequent periods of war and political turmoil. John-Peter Pham explores the consequences of outside intervention in the affairs of struggling states, particularly when such intervention involves the UN. He gives his own analysis and conclusions as to why Liberia qualifies as a failed state, and why intervention in Liberia has been all but completely useless.

All in all, it's very fascinating and informational. After walking away from this book, I felt I could have taken a general quiz on the country's history and done fairly well. In parts it reads like a drama, despite being written in a more technical and objective manner; perhaps this says more about the state of Sub-Saharan Africa than the author's talents as a writer, but there were times when I put down the book after a session of reading feeling more than a little shaken. There's some pretty heavy stuff here.

This book would get my full recommendation were it not for the appalling editing. I can say with complete honesty that I have never read a book with more spelling errors, sentence fragments, and similar grammatical mishaps. There were points where for several pages in a row, I could point out AT LEAST one mistake per page, and there were at least a few circumstances where within a single sentence there were multiple grammatical errors. There were times where these faults actually clouded whatever Pham was trying to say, and I as the reader had to unravel these editing oversights. Normally, I can overlook grammatical issues as simple mistakes (everyone makes them, right?), but in this case I can't for two reasons: 1) The sheer volume of them is just embarrassing, and they popped up frequently enough that my concentration was constantly being interrupted (aggravating when the book's subject matter is something that requires focus), and 2) The back flap of the book boasts about the author's multiple advanced degrees, so I would assume that he at least knows how to write without making such gross amounts of grammatical mistakes.

If you can get over the terrible editing, however, the book proves to be informational and insightful. Too few Westerners are aware of the tragedies of Sub-Saharan Africa. Although atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide and the conflict in Darfur have been brought to public attention, there have been (and still are) a host of other tragedies throughout the continent that haven't received proper attention. Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State offers a semblance of logic to the country's regretful history; just beware, you may not be able to wade through some of the writing.