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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Certainly more books have been written on what was once French North Africa than on most regions of the continent. Yet of the volumes written prior to the independence of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, how few are now worth reading! This judgement is not retrospective; the evidence was at hand long ago.1 That admirable compendium of scholarly accomplishments, Jean Alazard et al., Histoire et historiens de l'Algerie (Paris, Alcan, 1931), tells us that, 100 years after the French conquest of that country, there was little interest in studying the living society of the Muslim majority except as it posed legal, administrative or philological problems. After World War II, the President of the Algiers Court of Appeal, Georges Surdon, noted in La France en Afrique du nord (Algiers, Edition Alger republicain, 1946) that ‘all the books which have been devoted to the study of the implantation of the French in Algeria have given a fanciful or insufficient sketch of the native population’. Yet one of the basic arguments of his book is that since Arab authority is traditionally based on the tribe rather than on any geographical unit, Arab nationalism in North Africa stems from invalid assumptions. If one wants to learn about the problems of contemporary North Africans, less than a score of works published in French or English before Libya gained independence in 1951, Morocco and Tunisia in 1956, and Algeria in 1962 still remain essential reading.2
Page 103 note 1 Halpern, Manfred, ‘Recent Books on Moslem-French Relations in Algeria’, in Middle East Journal (Washington), III, 2, 04 1949, pp. 215–15Google Scholar. A number of other critical bibliographies should be consulted: Rivlin, Benjamin, ‘A Selective Survey of the Literature in the Social Sciences and Related Fields on Modern North Africa’, in The American Political Science Review (Washington), 09 1954, pp. 826–48Google Scholar; Flory, M., Tourneau, R.Le, and Trystam, J.-P., ‘L'Afrique du nord: état des travaux’, in Revue Française de science politique (Paris, IX, 2, 06 1959, pp. 410–53Google Scholar; Romeril, Paul E. A., ‘Tunisian Nationalism: a bibliographical outline’, in Middle East Journal, XIV, 2, Spring 1960, pp. 206–15.Google Scholar
Page 103 note 2 These are the exceptionally worth-while books I would cite, in alphabetical order: Ayache, Albert, Le Maroc: bilan d'une colonisation (Paris, Editions Sociales, 1956)Google Scholar; Basset, A., Berger, L., Brunschvig, R. et al. , Initiation à la Tunisie (Paris, Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1950)Google Scholar; Berque, Jacques, Structures sociales du Haut Atlas (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1955)Google Scholar; Demeerseman, André, Tunisie, terre d'amilié (Tunis, Bascone, 1955)Google Scholar; Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (London, Oxford University Press, 1949)Google Scholar; al-Fasi, Alal, The Independence Movements in Arab North Africa (Washington, American Council of Learned Societies, 1954)Google Scholar; Julien, Charles-André, Histoire de l'Afrique du nord, vols. I and II (Paris, Payot, 1951 and 1952)Google Scholar, and L'Afrique du nord en marche (Paris, Julliard, 1953)Google Scholar; Lacoste, Y., Nouschi, A., and Prenant, A., L'Algérie passé et present (Paris, Editions Sociales, 1961)Google Scholar; Le Tourneau, Roger, Fés avant le protectorat (Casablanca, Société Marocaine de Libraire et d'Edition, 1949)Google Scholar; Montagne, Robert, Les Berbères et le Maghzen dans le sud du Maroc (Paris, Alcan, 1930)Google Scholar, and Naissance du prolétariat marocain (Paris, Peyronnet, 1950)Google Scholar; de Montéty, Henry, Femmes de Tunisie (Paris, Mouton, 1958)Google Scholar; Rezette, Robert, Les Partis politiques marocains (Paris, Colin, 1955)Google Scholar; Sebag, Paul, La Tunisie (Paris, Editions Sociales, 1951)Google Scholar; Terasse, Henri, Initiation au Maroc (Paris, Vanoest, 1945).Google Scholar
Page 104 note 1 As a result, we shall also be compelled to ignore a number of valuable books which appeared in English or French between the dates of independence and 1960. Especially worth mentioning are relevant portions of Coon, Carleton, Caravan (New York, Holt, 1958)Google Scholar; Despois, Jean, L'Afrique du nord (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1958)—the kind of human geography at which the French excelGoogle Scholar; Hahn, Lorna, North Africa: nationalism to nationhood (Washington, Public Affairs Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Jean, and Lacourture, Simone, Le Maroc à l'épreuve (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1958)Google Scholar; Miner, Horace M.and de Vos, George, Oasis and Casbah: Algerian culture and personality in change (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1960)Google Scholar; and Tlatli, Salaheddine, Tunisie nouvelle (Tunis, 1957).Google Scholar
For reasons of space, some good books that appeared after 1960 had also to be neglected. Among these are: Bernard, Stephane, Le Conflit franco-marocain, 1943–1956, 3 vols. (Brussels, Editions de l'Institut de Sociologie, 1963)Google Scholar; Nouschi, A., La Naissance du nationalisme algérien, 1914–1954 (Paris, Les Editions de Minuit, 1962)Google Scholar; Perroux, François (ed.), L'Algérie de demain (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1962).Google Scholar
Page 104 note 2 Among these few, we should note, in particular, the reflections of a Neo-Destour leader, Sfar, Taher, Journal d'un exile (Tunis, Bouslama, 1960)Google Scholar, and Guen, Moncef, La Tunisie indépendante, face à son économie (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1961)Google Scholar; Abbas, Ferhat, La Nuit coloniale (Paris, Julliard, 1962)Google Scholar; and the books of the Malgache who had, in effect, become an Algerian, Fanon, Frantz, L'An V de la révolution algérienne (Paris, François Maspero, 1959)Google Scholar, and Las Damnés de la terre (Paris, François Maspero, 1961).Google Scholar
Page 104 note 3 The context in which these novelists worked is the main theme of Gordon, David C.'s succinct, perceptive North Africa's French Legacy, 1954–1962 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Page 107 note 1 An attempt to broaden and make explicit such comparisons, though not yet the underlying theoretical framework, is contained in Halpern, Manfred, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton University Press, 1963).Google Scholar
Page 110 note 1 Cf. Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1962).Google Scholar
Page 111 note 1 One topic for which no space could be found in Government and Politics in Northern Africa has been freshly and skilfully presented by Zartman, in The Sahara–Bridge or Barrier? (New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1963)Google Scholar, International Conciliation, no. 541.
Page 112 note 1 One British writer, Rom Landau, has produced so books on Morocco in the past 15 years, while also publishing others on the Arabs and Islam. His work is marked by vivid, personal enthusiasm and involvement. His most recent volume, Morocco Independent Under Mohammed the Fifth (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1961)Google Scholar, is probably his most interesting political travel book.
Page 113 note 1 Another, more specialised handbook remains useful for basic information on land and labour and for the earlier history of some of the largest trade union movements in Africa: Labour Survey of North Africa (Geneva, International Labour Office, 1960).Google Scholar
Page 113 note 2 In the United States, the University of Southern California has recently begun to publish a monthly digest of political, social, and economic events, the Maghreb Labor Digest (Los Angeles).