On April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers led by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe executed a bloody coup that put an end to the Americo-Liberian minority regime in Liberia, transforming Africa’s first republic into a military dictatorship. In Liberia under Samuel Doe, 1980-1985: The Politics of Personal Rule, Yekutiel Gershoni examines the evolution and effects of Samuel K. Doe’s reign in Liberia. Gershoni shows Doe’s path to absolute power, corruption, and dictatorship and the economic crises and political turmoil that ensued, even after his murder in 1990. Liberia under Samuel Doe also examines the role of the United States as Liberia’s closest ally, detailing how Doe managed to attract American diplomatic and military support due to U.S. interests in the Cold War. Through in-depth research, primary sources, and interviews with diplomats, politicians, and activists, Gershoni carefully details the timeline of Doe’s rise to power and the lasting effects of his dictatorial legacy.

Since the founding of the Liberian state in 1847, the country has faced several frontier issues, such as ethnic pluralism and inclusion, the elusive quest for democracy, decentralization, and socio-economic development. Cumulatively, the failure by the various state managers to address these and other major challenges occasioned an enduring civil conflict that imploded into mass insurrection on April 14, 1979, a military coup détat on April 12, 1980, and two civil wars from 1989-1997, and 1999-2003, respectively. Significantly, these major conflict events had profound ramifications, including the deaths of thousands of people, massive internal displacement, refugee crises, the destruction of the already underdeveloped physical infrastructure and the productive sectors of the economy, and the collapse of governance. Against this background, this book explores some of these frontier issuesthe travails of the peripheral state, ethnic pluralism and inclusion, the quest for democracy, decentralization and governance, the monocrop economy and its resulting implications for the crises of underdevelopment, public health, security sector reform, and post-conflict reconstructionthat have and continue to face Liberia in the twenty-first century. This book then makes policy-relevant recommendations for addressing these challenges, as the country strives to address its seemingly unending cycle of missed opportunities and false starts.

A selection of writings and speeches on the political evolution of the West African Republic of Liberia from 1978 to 2001 by a Liberian political activist who has been at the centre of the political developments in that country during the period covered.