The World's Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia

Veteran journalist Fergusson's riveting narrative about strife-riddled Somalia is a glimpse of a potential future "should our own systems of governance ever be allowed to collapse." His journey to understand the problem took him beyond Somalia to visit diaspora refugees who fled during the two-decade span marked by the lack of a functional government. Taliban-influence al-Shabaab saw opportunity in a Somalia weakened by civil war, drought, and famine%E2%80%94and home to scores of fatherless young males vulnerable to indoctrination. Interviews with members of peace-enforcing AMISOM, local generals, medics, and a young man whose family had been destroyed give face to the suffering in a country where the estimated violent death figure is 500,000 and where few people are educated. Somalia's future lies with refugees who have become educated Western professionals, which Fergusson confirms in interviews with Somalis in Minneapolis and London, although he also details their struggles to adapt. Horrific suffering, brutality, and devastation%E2%80%94often caused by outside influences, including the U.S., but also by the "self-destructive obstinacy" of Somalis themselves%E2%80%94are all detailed in fluid reportage. Fergusson rounds out this invaluable work by noting the glimmers of hope appearing with the demand for education and disdain for the clan system. Maps & photos. (June)