Winner of the Amaury Talbot book prize and Choice Academic Book Award, Peter Little’s “Somalia: Economy Without State” invites readers to see a world where the social and economic systems (including banking) run without a government.

In the case of Somalia, Little shows that despite the lack of an official administration, Somali people “get on with their lives” often under very difficult circumstances. Contrary to public stereotypes, social and political life are not anarchic in the country. Little also uncovers how the stateless economy of Somalia has made important advances in telecommunications, trade and banking that have impacted the entire Horn of Africa region.

Peter Little is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Tulane University, and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Indiana University. His scholastic passions include pastoralism; economic and ecological anthropology; development studies; social theory and organization; political economy; and East Africa and Horn of Africa.  In the past six years Little has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation grant and a Guggenheim fellowship.