States and Women's Rights The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco by Mounira M Charrad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 341 pages.)

Abstract

In her preface, Mounira Charrad traces the genesis of her study to her concerns as a sociologist regarding the inadequate analytical models used to account for the origin of political organization in the "predominantly classbased and capitalist societies" Maghribi societies. Charrad proposes "kinship" and tribal ties as more appropriate sociological categories for acquir­ing a good understanding of the foundations of social relations in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. She focuses on three distinct historical periods: pre­colonial, colonial, and post-independence. Her investigation centers on documenting the historical relationship between the process of nation­building and state-formation, and the codification and articulation of a uni­fied family law that replaced numerous (and sometimes conflicting) forms of customary law competing with Islamic law.
The book combines historical, sociological, and geographical data and analytical concepts in order to frame the investigation's main subject. The subject is covered in three main parts divided into nine chapters, in addition to an introduction and a conclusion. The text is supplemented with tables and maps documenting linguistic and geographic features of the Maghrebi states under study. The book concludes with a useful glossary of transliter­ated Arabic words, chapter notes, a selected bibliography organized conve­niently under five main headings, an author index, and a subject index ...