ABSTRACT
After a journey through North Africa in search of information one instinctively tries to find another region by which to measure the development of the Maghreb. One and a half million Europeans were settled in North Africa at mid-century, together with 600,000 Jews who had lived there for centuries; the non- Moslem population came close to one-tenth of the total. The Berbers have inherited the name which the Greeks gave to all foreigners, barbarians, and taken over by the Arabs when they inherited North Africa. The comparison between North Africa and Turkey is not as far fetched as might appear, given the fact that the Ottoman Empire dominated the Maghreb—with the exception of Morocco—for three centuries. With their characteristic ability to set up states, the Turks temporarily succeeded in giving a new structure to the crumbling Arab West; today’s regional divisions go back to Turkish times.
