An accessible and engaging history of modern Morocco
Modern Morocco emerged as an independent state in 1956, transitioning from French and Spanish colonial rule. It was one of the last countries in Africa to be colonised and was extremely resistant to Western incursion. But today, it is one of the most pro-Western states in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and has become the object of an international struggle for influence between France, Britain, Spain, Germany and the USA. 

Martin Evans traces the history of modern Morocco from the late seventeenth century to the present day. Drawing upon memoirs, art, music and popular culture, Evans gets under the skin of a country grappling with widespread problems—climate change, corruption and democratic accountability. He shows how Morocco’s monarchy, in facing international and national challenges, has had to learn to adapt in order to survive. Morocco can, he argues, only be properly understood within the successive contexts of imperialism, the Cold War, the “War on Terror” and the Arab Spring.