History of North Africa: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco (2nd FR ed., 1952; Engl. transl. 1970)

The French edition of the second volume of Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord has long been accepted as a convenient reference by students of Middle Eastern, West African and North African history. A second French edition, updated by Roger Le Tourneau and including a valuable bibliographic guide, has now been translated into English in order to fill both the English-speaking historiographer's need for information on North Africa's past and the general reader's curiosity about the sociology, economics, art and archaeology of the Maghrib. Charles-André Julien recounts a critical period in the history of North Africa, one in which the region witnessed the rise and fall of many dynasties without ever achieving a lasting unity, as Islam became an inseparable aspect of the social, political and national character of the time. The process of Islamization began as early as the end of the seventh century but did not culminate until after the triumph of the Almohads in the twelfth century. There after the Maghrib and Islam were inseparable. The author also takes into account the Muslim aspect, maintaining that none of North Africa's problems can be understood apart this crucial factor in its history. Most of the material in the first four chapters comes directly from Arab writers themselves and is presented chronologically, beginning with the Arab conquest and the history of the Kharijite kingdoms from the sixth to the eighth century and the Berber empires of the Almoravids and the Almohads of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The last two chapters deal with the Sharifian Empire in Morocco from 1533 to 1830 and the Turkish rule of Algeria and Tunisia from 1516 to 1830. A glossary clarifies Arabic terms and their usages in Maghrib Islam.