Journal of North African Studies

North Africa has rarely been treated as a cohesive area of study, even though historical and social links have always been strong, with most of its constituent countries having been part of the Ottoman empire. In part this has been because of its colonial past, with Egypt and Sudan having been under British control, Libya being first occupied by Italy, then administered by Britain and France; whilst the maghrib states of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania belonged to the French colonial empire, with a Spanish presence in parts of Morocco and the Western Sahara. Today, however, the countries concerned increasingly share a common destiny.