8vo. xii, 504 pp., frontispiece loose, b/w photographs, 1 folding map, contemporary cloth, rubbed & lightly soiled, some foxing throughout, paper slightly browned, previous owner’s name inscribed at front fly leaf, index, Sampson Low, Marston &. Co. London, Twixt Sand and Searst edition, 1911.

Synopsis

The principle ingredients of North Africa according to the authors are: ‘sand that seems to stretch out into infinity…the ruins of three great civilisations…and the glory of the golden haze over the desert’. The past plays a great part in this narrative, from the history of Carthage, through the Punic Wars, the Roman Empire in North Africa – when systematic irrigation turned Africa into ‘the granary of Rome’ – to the growth of Christianity, invasions of Vandals and Byzantines and, finally, the spread of Islam.