North Africa, Revised Edition

A History from Antiquity to the Present

by Phillip Naylor

411 Pages, 15 b&w maps

Sales Date: January 15, 2015

411 Pages, 15 b&w maps

EPUB

9780292761926 : January 2015

$34.95

BUY

Media Requests Request a desk or exam copy Rights & Permissions Recommend to your library

Description
Author
Praise
Contents

North Africa has been a vital crossroads throughout history, serving as a connection between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Paradoxically, however, the region's historical significance has been chronically underestimated. In a book that may lead scholars to reimagine the concept of Western civilization, incorporating the role North African peoples played in shaping "the West," Phillip Naylor describes a locale whose transcultural heritage serves as a crucial hinge, politically, economically, and socially.

Ideal for novices and specialists alike, North Africa begins with an acknowledgment that defining this area has presented challenges throughout history. Naylor's survey encompasses the Paleolithic period and early Egyptian cultures, leading readers through the pharonic dynasties, the conflicts with Rome and Carthage, the rise of Islam, the growth of the Ottoman Empire, European incursions, and the postcolonial prospects for Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara.

Emphasizing the importance of encounters and interactions among civilizations, North Africa maps a prominent future for scholarship about this pivotal region.

Now with a new afterword that surveys the “North African Spring” uprisings that roiled the region from 2011 to 2013, this is the most comprehensive history of North Africa to date, with accessible, in-depth chapters covering the pre-Islamic period through colonization and independence.

Phillip C. Naylor is Professor of History at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he directed the Western Civilization program. His previous books include The Historical Dictionary of Algeria and France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation. He is coeditor of the Journal of North African Studies.

"Naylor’s approach is innovative, his research thorough and balanced, and, most importantly, he exhibits an exceptional empathy for the peoples and cultures of the region whose history remains little understood in the United States. This is a work of exceptional insight that deserves the widest circulation possible."

— John Entelis, Professor of Political Science and Director, Middle East Studies Program, Fordham University

"North Africa’s story from antiquity onward, Mr. Naylor shows, is one of turbulence, borrowings, exchanges, competition, and cooperation across all manner of barriers, by no means only cultural. . . . [This is] a solid history of a region with whose conflicts we—not to mention the Sahrawis and their neighbors—are fated to contend with for at least a few years still."

— Wall Street Journal

"Naylor elegantly leads the reader through the maze of events that have shaped the history of a vast region at the crossroads of civilizations. . . . North Africa is a valuable introduction for students and the general public of an understudied part of the world."

— Middle East Journal

"[This book succeeds] in its primary task of ‘locating’ North Africa’s place in the curriculum, and I anticipate that it will become the primary textbook for coursework in this emerging ﬁeld. The general reader will also be well served by turning to it ﬁrst for an English-language survey. . . . The specialist of the region . . . will appreciate it when sorting out the complexity of North Africa’s long history, a history few have mastered as well in print as Naylor."

— Journal of African History

List of Maps
A Note to the Reader
Preface to First Edition
Preface to Revised Edition
Introduction
1. Ancient North Africa and Its Expansive Civilizations
2. Rome and North Africa
3. Medieval North Africa: From the Arrival of Islam to the Berber Empires
4. The Almoravid and the Almohad Empires and Their Successor States
5. Turkish Ascendance and Moroccan Independence
6. European Colonialism in North Africa
7. The Decolonization of North Africa
8. Post-Colonial and Contemporary North Africa: Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia
9. Post-Colonial and Contemporary North Africa: Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara
Conclusion. The Peril and Promise of North Africa
Afterword. The North African Spring
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index