The Sahara has long been portrayed as a barrier that divides the Mediterranean world from Africa proper and isolates the countries of the Maghrib from their southern and eastern neighbors. Rather than viewing the desert as an isolating barrier, this volume takes up historian Fernand Braudel's description of the Sahara as "the second face of the Mediterranean." The essays recast the history of the region with the Sahara at its center, uncovering a story of densely interdependent networks that span the desert's vast expanse. They explore the relationship between the desert's "islands" and "shores" and the connections and commonalities that unite the region. Contributors draw on extensive ethnographic and historical research to address topics such as trade and migration; local notions of place, territoriality, and movement; Saharan cities; and the links among ecological, regional, and world-historical approaches to understanding the Sahara.

Issued in conjunction with the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, held January 26, 2019-July 21, 2019, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

“Makes a compelling case for the importance of Saharan history, both in its own right and in its articulations with the histories of other regions.” —American Ethnologist The Sahara has long been portrayed as a barrier that divides the Mediterranean world from Africa proper and isolates the countries of the Maghrib from their southern and eastern neighbors. Rather than viewing the desert as an isolating barrier, this volume takes up historian Fernand Braudel’s description of the Sahara as “the second face of the Mediterranean.” The essays recast the history of the region with the Sahara at its center, uncovering a story of densely interdependent networks that span the desert’s vast expanse. They explore the relationship between the desert’s “islands” and “shores” and the connections and commonalities that unite the region. Contributors draw on extensive ethnographic and historical research to address topics such as trade and migration; local notions of place, territoriality, and movement; Saharan cities; and the links among ecological, regional, and world-historical approaches to understanding the Sahara. Contributions by Dida Badi, Julien Brachet, Armelle Chopin, Charles Grémont, Peregrine Horden, Olivier Leservoisier, Laurence Marfaing, E. Ann McDougall, Abderrahmane Moussaoui, Mohamed Oudada, Fatma Oussedik, and Katia Schörle “A compilation of coherent, well-structured case studies addressing highly significant issues for the contemporary Sahara . . . a groundbreaking study.” —Social Anthropology “Altogether, this book is highly recommendable. Its key contribution is in teaching us to conceive of the Sahara not as a region clearly defined by natural features, but as a space that exists, extends, and expands according to its vibrant human interconnectedness.” —Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam chronicles the experiences, identity and achievements of enslaved black people in Morocco from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. Chouki El Hamel argues that we cannot rely solely on Islamic ideology as the key to explain social relations and particularly the history of black slavery in the Muslim world, for this viewpoint yields an inaccurate historical record of the people, institutions and social practices of slavery in Northwest Africa. El Hamel focuses on black Moroccans' collective experience beginning with their enslavement to serve as the loyal army of the Sultan Isma'il. By the time the Sultan died in 1727, they had become a political force, making and unmaking rulers well into the nineteenth century. The emphasis on the political history of the black army is augmented by a close examination of the continuity of black Moroccan identity through the musical and cultural practices of the Gnawa.

"We’re going to build a wall.” Borders have been drawn since the beginning of time, but in recent years artificial barriers have become increasingly significant to the political conversation across the world. Donald Trump was elected President of the United States while promising to build a wall on the Mexico border, and in Europe, the international movements of migrants and refugees have sparked fierce discussion about whether and how countries should restrict access to their territory by erecting physical barriers. Virtual walls are also built and crushed at increasing speed. In the post-9/11 era there is a greater danger from so-called "transnational non-state actors”, and computer hacking and cyberterrorism threaten to overwhelm our technological barriers. In this timely and original book, Said Saddiki scrutinises the physical and virtual walls located in four continents, including Israel, India, the southern EU border, Morocco, and the proposed border wall between Mexico and the US. Saddiki’s detailed analysis explores the tensions between the rise of globalisation, which some have argued will lead to a "borderless world” and "the end of the nation-state”, and the rapid development in recent decades of border control systems. Saddiki examines both regular and irregular cross-border activities, including the flow of people, goods, ideas, drugs, weapons, capital, and information, and explores the disparities that are reflected by barriers to such activities. He considers the consequences of the construction of physical and virtual walls, including their impact on international relations and the rise of the multi-billion dollar security market. World of Walls: The Structure, Roles and Effectiveness of Separation Barriers is important reading for all those interested in the topics of immigration, border security, international relations, and policy.

International Armed Conflict Since 1945 is a bibliographic handbook that briefly describes each of 269 international wars and other war-threatening conflicts occurring between 1945 and 1988. .

A provocative case that “failed states” along the periphery of today’s international system are the intended result of nineteenth-century colonial design. From the Afghan frontier with British India to the pampas of Argentina to the deserts of Arizona, nineteenth-century empires drew borders with an eye toward placing indigenous people just on the edge of the interior. They were too nomadic and communal to incorporate in the state, yet their labor was too valuable to displace entirely. Benjamin Hopkins argues that empires sought to keep the “savage” just close enough to take advantage of, with lasting ramifications for the global nation-state order. Hopkins theorizes and explores frontier governmentality, a distinctive kind of administrative rule that spread from empire to empire. Colonial powers did not just create ad hoc methods or alight independently on similar techniques of domination: they learned from each other. Although the indigenous peoples inhabiting newly conquered and demarcated spaces were subjugated in a variety of ways, Ruling the Savage Periphery isolates continuities across regimes and locates the patterns of transmission that made frontier governmentality a world-spanning phenomenon. Today, the supposedly failed states along the margins of the international system—states riven by terrorism and violence—are not dysfunctional anomalies. Rather, they work as imperial statecraft intended, harboring the outsiders whom stable states simultaneously encapsulate and exploit. “Civilization” continues to deny responsibility for border dwellers while keeping them close enough to work, buy goods across state lines, and justify national-security agendas. The present global order is thus the tragic legacy of a colonial design, sustaining frontier governmentality and its objectives for a new age.