Lords of the Atlas

I own two copies of this book - the Century Travellers Edition and this 2000 edition with the contemporary photographs, and decorative pages etc. The first thing I did upon deciding to read it was check whether there was a difference between the two. In the 1983 Century Travellers edition, Geoffrey Moorhouse has written a brief introduction. In the Cassell 2000 edition, there is an incomplete essay on Morocco in general terms, written by Maxwell as the introduction to a long magazine article shortly before his death. Other the these differences the text is almost identical, although some statistics have been corrected (eg the height of a mountain mentioned in chapter one).

I enjoy Maxwell's writing. His A Reed Shaken by the Wind is five stars and wonderful book in which Maxwell's passion is clearly transmitted in his writing. I have read the first of his Ring of Brightwater Trilogy, and found the same, both were 5 star books for me.

This book, however was not a five star book. For me, it had none of the passion, none of Maxwells emotion or style so readily found in his other works. Some of this at least, is due to Maxwell quoting large sections of a book by Walter Harris (Morocco That Was), principally because it described everything Maxwell wanted to write about (in Part One of the book), and he obtained permission to do so. This means Maxwell was unable to exert his own voice to proceedings, and while this changed a little in Part Two, by this point I was lacking motivation with the book.

It is also not a straight forward history to understand. I had a zero baseline for the political and power struggle of the time, so was totally reliant on the narrative to educate me. Unfortunately for me, it was tricky to keep the names and places in order, confusing as to who was siding with whom at which time (they were fond of chopping and changing loyalties), and exactly to what ends someones actions were planning.

Which is all a shame, as I had been saving this book, looking forward to it for some time, and perhaps that was my undoing.

A note on the photographs in the 2000 edition - I am 50/50 on these. To some end they were a distraction, because ultimately they were unconnected to the text (for the most part). They were not contemporary with the writing, but modern, and showing situations similar to, but not matching the locations. However such is my interest in Morocco that the photos were interesting of their own accord, and of the current (at the time of publishing) condition of the kasbahs and villages.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3***.