'We've been trying to get you to come and talk here for the last three years,' my host complained as we shook hands at the airport. 'Here' was Tripoli, capital of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, bathed in mild February sunshine; my host a functionary from the World Centre for the Studies and Researches of the Green Book - the Green Book is the Libyan equivalent of the Little Red Book. 'The lecture is just an excuse,' I told him. 'I'm really here to see Leptis Magna' - the capital of Rome's African empire. We both laughed. He because he thought I was joking and me because I wasn't.

LRB 9 March 2006 | PDF Download