American Journal of Islam and Society (Jan 2008)
Morocco
Abstract
Veteran journalist Marvine Howe’s book on Morocco is unique in its genre. Though she worked for Radio Maroc and as a stringer for the New York Times and Time-Life in Morocco from 1951 to 1962, Howe has covered several topics related to that country since and returned for a serious “Tour du Maroc” with two old friends in 2001. Her book, with its countless interviews of political and cultural personalities before and after her departure in the 1960s, is more than simply journalism. Howe has invested a lifetime of studying Morocco and its people. This book, addressed to a general audience, reads like a comprehensive “state of the union” survey of Morocco today, in its variegated political, cultural, ethnic, religious, and economic aspects – all in a lucid and often elegant prose. Howe has kept upwith all of the majorworks onMorocco over the years, both in French and in English, fromJohnWaterbury’s The Commander of the Faithful (1970) to Fatima Sadiqi’s Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco (2002). Even the more recent book by Shana Cohen and Larabi Jaidi, Morocco: Globalization and Its Consequences (2006), shares many of her conclusions ...