"A major contribution to the study of North Africa in particular and to developmental questions in general." --Middle East Journal "Rich in fascinating and extremely intelligent insights into the workings of Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan societies, and many of Hermassi's theoretical assumptions will undoubtedly become common currency in discussions of North Africa's socio-political development." --Times Literary Supplement "Hermassi acquaints us--and he does this exceedingly well--with the historical processes which link, or may link, traditional feuds and internecine wars with the contemporary anti-colonial--and eventually anti-capitalists movement--as in Algeria . . . . a first-rate panorama of the struggles surrounding elite formation, first and second-phase governance and independence in the three maghribi states." --Annals