Book excerpt: Mohamoud's work considers the underlying causes for the breakdown of the state across both time and space. Time is considered across the triple history - the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial processes. Space is used in the sense of taking the whole of Somalia as a unit of analysis. This approach enables the discovery of different structural crises over a period of time and examines these cumulative effects on the current upheavals in Somalia. Among the approaches, State Collapse and Post-Conflict Development in Africa covers the constraints in the harsh material environment; the subsistence pastoral mode of existence; the colonial intervention and the subsequent division of the land into five parts; Cold War geopolitics; decades of armed struggles; and the post-colonial crisis of governance. Dr. Abdulla (Awil) Mohamoud runs SAHAN, an academic research and consultancy agency, which conducts policy oriented research and fact finding missions abroad, mainly in Africa, undertakes evaluation and monitoring activities, provides training and offers advisory services on integration and multi-cultural issues. He holds an MA degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and earned his PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Mohamoud has served regularly as an election observer in UN, EU, Council of Europe and OSCE missions to conflict and war-torn societies (to East-Timor, Kosovo, Nigeria, Serbia, and Zimbabwe).