Forty years after Col. Gaddafi's Libyan Revolution cut Libya off from
the outside world, scrubbed out Western lettering and turned the country
against the US, Libya has changed its outlook, renounced nuclear weapons
and reopened itself to Western cruise ships and tourists. Gaddafi is
still in power. Nicholas Hagger, an eyewitness of the events of the 1969
Revolution and plans for a rival coup, predicted at the time that
Gaddafi would still be in power 40 years later. He narrates the story of
the first year of the Revolution, identifies its aims and considers if
they have been achieved. Before the Revolution he wrote a weekly
two-page feature in a Libyan English-language newspaper under the byline
the Barbary Gipsy. His timeless and poetic views of Libya's sea, sand
and Roman ruins in these articles are reprinted in an Appendix. This is
a memoir and a portrait of western Libya. The places visited have
changed little as a return visit in 2001 established. This book is
required reading for all visitors to Libya today.