Mauritania. by Alfred G. Gerteiny.[Praeger Library of African
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1592 Reviews of Books threatened to suspend local govemment, and the Senate voted down the bill in 1938. The rejection further expedited the estrangement of the Algerian intellec- tuals from France. The book's organization is at first confusing and detracts from its effect; the author tends to introduce material that, while pertinent, seems out of place. For example, the discussion of the imperialist philosophers Girault, Harmand, and Vignon is important, but this segment should have been placed before the sec- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/73/5/1592/216020 by guest on 29 September 2021 tion on French reforms through 1919. Such criticisms are minor and do not affect the study's value in highlighting the Algerian issues before World War II. San jose State College HARRY A. GAILEY MAURITANIA. By Alfred G. Gerteiny. [Praeger Library of African Affairs.] (New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1967. Pp. x, 243. $6.00.) GERTEINY'S book is the first survey of Mauritania to be published anywhere. It contains much useful information on geography, peoples, Moorish society and culture, political evolution in the past two decades, economic and industrial de- velopment since independence (1961), and relations with other African states (including the dispute with Morocco). These sections demonstrate the use of published materials in French as well as the author's researches in Mauritania in 1963-1964, where he enjoyed the cooperation of the government of President Moktar Ould Daddah. In presenting his data in a generally readable fashion, Gerteiny has performed a real service to the student of contemporary African affairs. It is the student of Mauritania's history who is less well served by this book. Gerteiny presents comprehensive chapters only for those periods which French scholars have already carefully researched. Thus there is an excellent summary of the origins and development of Moorish society. There are good accounts of early European contacts, French penetration in the nineteenth century and con- quest in the twentieth. But one learns almost nothing about the period 1912— 1946, for which Gerteiny gives but a few paragraphs. For the period 1946-1961 the author discusses only the political evolution, treating it within a narrowly territorial context that largely neglects the influences arising from Mauritania's inclusion in the Fourth French Republic and the fed- eration of French West Africa. Gerteiny's bibliography omits the French litera- ture on these subjects and the important works on the federation by the Adloffs (1957) and Schachter-Morgenthau (1964). His unfamiliarity with these aspects of Mauritania's political evolution is also revealed by his errors. For example, the statement that after the Second World War, "Mauritanians and other Fed- eration nationals were French subjects" shows Gerteiny's ignorance concerning the reforms of 1946 that made all Africans within the federation citizens of the French Republic. Equally revealing but less serious are errors that call the leader of the Union Démocratique et Sociale de la Résistance "Charles" Mitterand and the Union Africaine et Malgache a body of "twelve French Community states." Thus the history of Mauritania has still largely to be written. One may hope that Gerteiny, with his considerable knowledge of that country and his training in Arabic, will apply himself to this task. Marquette University DAVID E. GARDINIER.