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...

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...