Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua, 1893-1956

Gavin Maxwell

ISBN 10: 1585746339 / ISBN 13: 9781585746330

Published by Lyons Press September 2002, 2002

About this Item

used trade paperback edition. lightly shelfworn, corners perhaps slightly bumped. pages and binding are clean, straight and tight. there are no marks to the text or other serious flaws.

Seller Inventory # 1173832

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua, 1893-1956
• Publisher: Lyons Press September 2002
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1585746339
• ISBN 13: 9781585746330
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: VG
• Seller catalogs:
  • HIST africa

About this title

Synopsis

A classic story of history, intrigue, mystery, and action.

From the Back Cover

This is the classic account of the ruthless House of Glaoua, rulers of Morocco from 1893-1956, by the author of the international bestseller Ring of Bright Water. It is a story of brutal power and cultural beauty, of palaces with hundreds of rooms, and of heads piled high around cannons.
The setting is the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, the border between the "civilized" coast and the nomadic tribes of the interior Sahara, a forbidding region of snow-capped peaks near the equator, some rising as high as 12,000 feet. Maxwell spent years researching this story, traveling by Land Rover and mule to reach the far-flung villages where the Glaoua got their start.
In the foothills of these majestic summits, the brothers Madini and T'hami Glaoui, sons of an Ethiopian concubine and rulers of a salt-trading village, increasingly gained power as the infrastructure of the French occupation crumbled. As they came to rule the country, they built castles of sand, literally, which are slowly crumbling in the hills to this day.
This is a tale of the intersection of the medieval and the modern, of ancient power principles and the complications of the global world. There is nothing quite like it.