Somalia

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-A book about Operation Restore Hope that reflects American media treatment of the crisis rather than offering young people a basis for understanding how the Somalis themselves have experienced it and why it happened. An introductory chapter attempts to provide cultural as well as historical and geographic background. The brief material on Somali origins has been disproved by recent scholarship. More important, the description of the clan system and ``warrior'' traditions does not make real the centrality of clan/lineage/family identity over the centuries, or the way in which negotiation and competition among these segments was, prior to colonial rule, a viable ``international'' political system among Somali-speaking peoples. Thus the subsequent chapters, which seem overburdened with details of clans and political parties, as well as inadequately explained rebels, warlords, and gangs, are often confusing. Two thirds of the text is about the period since the decline of Siad Barre, and more than half of the full-color photographs feature non-Somalis. The role of U.S. and Soviet supplied arms is barely hinted at. Surely the situation in this war-torn nation seems meaninglessly chaotic to most Americans, but Ricciuti does not explain it well.-Loretta Kreider Andrews, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore