This chapter examines maps of the region from precolonial times, especially the eighteenth century, up to the colonial period. It traces the visual representation of the region as a distinct unit, with specific contours and names. It also looks at the frontiers of the region westward and eastward and examines how geopolitics imposed certain cuts excluding Libya, an Italian colony, and Egypt, a British colony that became important after Napoleon, in the construction of an Arab Middle East. The chapter looks at popular forms of knowledge, especially the atlas, to examine how the conception and the name of the Maghreb were made available for a larger audience in order to shape the geographic imaginary of the modern citizen in Europe as well as in the colonies

Lieutenant Jim Truscott, a 23-year-old officer from the Royal Australian Engineers, vividly recalled his introduction to his task of monitoring the activities of the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF). The day after their arrival in Salisbury, he and Sergeant Peter King were deployed by British helicopter. ‘The pilot was positively nervous as he furtively looked for low-strung wires’, but Truscott and King were blissfully ignorant of the danger and enjoyed the ride until they found themselves ‘dumped in a paddock beside the little country town of Marandellas’. There was nothing more they could do but squat on their packs and wait until the Rhodesian unit they were responsible for monitoring arrived about an hour later. In the meantime, they mused as to whether they should load their weapons, despite orders to the contrary. When they were finally picked up, the vehicles practised their counter-ambush drills just before leaving the town. As Truscott wrote: ‘We simply looked at each other and our magazines never left our weapons for the next two months.’

‘The past week has marked one of the most difficult and potentially dangerous phases of the settlement in Rhodesia. Great forbearance – the more difficult after years of war – was called for from all sides.’ With these words, the interim Governor, Christopher Soames, opened a broadcast to the nation on the evening of 6 January 1980. In somewhat florid language, he continued by describing progress so far in dramatic terms as three acts: the withdrawal of the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF); the dispersal of members of the Commonwealth Monitoring Force (CMF) ‘in small isolated groups scattered among the hills and in the middle of the veldt’; and finally the arrival at the Rendezvous Points and Assembly Places (APs), ‘in a trickle which has become a flood’, of thousands of members of the Patriotic Front (PF).