This survey of North African history challenges both conventional
attitudes toward North Africa and previously published histories written
from the point of view of Western scholarship. The book aims, in
Professor Laroui's words, "to give from within a decolonized vision of
North African history just as the present leaders of the Maghrib are
trying to modernize the economic and social structure of the country."
The text is divided into four parts: the origins of the Islamic
conquest; the stages of Islamization; the breakdown of central authority
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries; and the advent of
colonial rule. Drawing on the methods of sociology and political science
as well as traditional and modern historical approaches, the author
stresses the evolution marked by these four stages and the internal
forces that affected it.
Until now, the author contends, North African history has been written
either by colonial administrators and politicians concerned to defend
foreign rule, or by nationalist ideologues. Both used an old-fashioned
historiography, he asserts, focusing on political events, dynastic
conflicts, and theological controversies. Here, Abdallah Laroui seeks to
present the viewpoint of a Maghribi concerning the history of his own
country, and to relate this history to the present structure of the
region.
Originally published in 1977.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
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