Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE by K.M. de Silva

The story of post-colonial Sri Lanka is, in large part, the story of how two groups have interlaced and, in the process, engaged in a 30-year war which saw its end in 2009. In Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE, K.M. de Silva addresses the history of ethnic tension in Sri Lanka, and presents a case study of the emergence, maturation and eventual collapse of the terrorist organisation the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). De Silva, a renowned empiricist historian known for his use of documentary methods and political history, puts forth this book as ‘an introduction to the study of the end of a war’, and an analysis of the reconciliation strategy of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). He attempts to deliver a cogent account of the ethnic conflict in the context of nation and state building (p. 218).