North Africa, Revised Edition

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.

John Entelis, Professor of Political Science and Director, Middle East Studies Program, Fordham University:
"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."

"[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."

"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."

"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."