Morocco Bound: Disorienting America's Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express

Morocco Bound: Disorienting America's Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express. By Brian T. Edwards. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. xvi, 366 pp. Cloth, $84.95, ISBN 0-8223-3609-X. Paper, $23.95, ISBN 0-8223-3644-8.)

Morocco Bound is a fascinating and insightful account of the multiple ways that Americans engaged Morocco from the 1940s to the 1970s. Brian T. Edwards examines cultural and political encounters, ranging from U.S. soldiers and reporters in the North African campaign of World War II to novels, state department memos, travelers' accounts, and ethnographies. Edwards rightfully positions his study within recent transnationalist approaches to American studies, and he convincingly argues for the continuing importance of orientalism as an analytical framework for U.S. visions of Morocco. Edwards's major methodological claim is that his work provides a more nuanced account of the relationship between culture and foreign policy than has so far been...