The Desert and the Drum (Dedalus Africa)

Odette du Puigaudeau is best known for her major ethnographic work, Arts et Coutumes des Maures, a detailed study, in words and drawings, of the cultural world of the nomads of Mauretania. The present work explains how she came to write it. Barefoot Through Mauretania is an account of her first journey across the country by camel in 1933-4, with her life-long companion, Marion Snones. The book records the adventures of the two women during that year, often with a touch of humour. Above all, however, it presents a picture of a way of life that has, as they feared, almost vanished, and their determination that it should be recorded. Odette du Puigaudeau wrote a number of other books on different aspects of nomad life, such as the salt caravans and date markets, as well as articles on prehistoric rock-drawings, and a charming tribute to her pet leopard, Rachid.

Barefoot through Mauretania

Lalla lives in the Muslim country of Mauritania, and more than anything, she wants to wear a "malafa," the colorful cloth Mauritanian women, like her mama and big sister, wear to cover their heads and clothes in public. But it is not until Lalla realizes that a "malafa" is not just worn to show a woman's beauty and mystery or to honor tradition—a "malafa" is for faith—that Lalla's mother agrees to slip a long cloth as blue as the ink in the Koran over Lalla's head, under her arm, and round and round her body. Then together, they pray. 

An author's note and glossary are included in the back of the book.

Deep in the Sahara

In modern-day Mauritania, as in several multilingual states, tensions over language policy and identity between the two ethnic groups--Arab and afro-Mauritanian--have been flaring ever since the nation's independence. In Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed investigates language policy and identity in this North African country. Moulaye Ahmed traces the past and the present Mauritania's identities and language policies and reveals Mauritanians' language policy preferences and the relationship between their identities and their preferences.

Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions

Nomads of Mauritania aims at understanding the cultural identity (religious beliefs, language, values, relationships with others) of the Mauritanian nomads through their geographical environment, an original history, their lifestyle, caste system, diet, housing and crafts and how it is revealed by their art, materially expressed on the everyday objects and the body and defined for the first time as geometrical-abstract and respectively as ephemeral usual art and ephemeral living art. Furthermore, what has become of the nomads of Mauritania with the climate warming and the economic and cultural globalization and to what extent are they still the pillars and heart of the Mauritanian society of today?

Nomads of Mauritania

This book, the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics and civil-military relations in a little studied country: Mauritania, located in the troubled North-western part of Africa. Boubacar N'Diaye brings into light the political evolution of this country which holds lessons for African politics, and could affect the future of the West African sub-region.

Mauritania's Colonels examines the personalities and policy of five military officers turned heads of state who ruled Mauritania for nearly forty years. After comparing and contrasting the personal traits, social origins, itineraries, and evolution as military officers, it critically evaluates the policies they enacted to address four key challenges their country faces. These are, namely, the difficult cohabitation between the country's ethno-cultural communities, the illusive democratization and military withdrawal from politics, the judicious management of the country's abundant natural resources to meet the socioeconomic needs of their people, and the prudent conduct of foreign policy given Mauritania's location, straddling Arab North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Showing the impact that each Colonel has had on the evolution of Mauritania, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of West Africa, African politics, civil-military relations and democratization processes.

Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (African Governance)

This book, a historic and political account, depicts the daily horror endured by hundreds of thousands of blacks in the south of Mauritania and purposefully ignored by the international community. It also pictures the Senegal river valley or at least the north bank of it as an occupied territory highly militarized by the Mauritanian authorities to keep under terror the original inhabitants -blacks from the Fulani, the Wolof and the Soninke ethnic groups- and allow invaders from the north; Moors in general, Arabs in particular; from the Smassid, Moawiya's tribe in singular to illegally occupy and exploit their farm lands .It explains how the whole process has and is still being orchestrated by the central government in Nouakchott. This document gives the reader the smallest and most accurate details about real life and right from wrong about what is being said about Mauritanian's leaders and policies. It also explains how France, since colonization, has played and continues to play an imminent role in the exclusion, the humiliation and the extermination of blacks in the country.

The Ignored Cries of Pain and Injustice from Mauritania

Peter Hudson has been visiting the same village in Mauritania on the remote edge of the Sahara for over twenty years. This is the story of his most recent journey there – an intense and engaging day-by-day account through which global change and inequality are made human.

The Sahel – the 'shore' of the Sahara – is where cultures, customs and climates meet, merge and clash. Through the numerous characters we meet and from the obviously deep and sympathetic nature of the relationship the author has with the local people, we learn of the realities of life in one of the harshest, most marginalised and but also quietly inspiring corners of the world.

Searingly honest and refreshing, this is a superb piece of travel writing about a little-known part of the world.

Under An African Sky: A journey to the climate frontline

Since the early 1980s, Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) have represented the development policy most often pursued in developing countries. Global Restructuring and Peripheral States addresses SAPs and their implications for Third World states. Taking a pioneering geopolitical and economic approach, Ould-Mey examines the restructuring of international relations through the process of globalization and its unfolding within peripheral states such as Mauritania.

Mauritania

The Desert and the Drum (Dedalus Africa)

Mbarek Ould Beyrouk

Barefoot through Mauretania

Odette du Puigaudeau

Deep in the Sahara

Kelly Cunnane

Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions

El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed

Nomads of Mauritania

Brigitte Himpan

Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (African Governance)

Boubacar N'Diaye

The Ignored Cries of Pain and Injustice from Mauritania

Sidi Sene

Under An African Sky: A journey to the climate frontline

Peter Hudson

Global Restructuring And Peripheral States: The Carrot And The Stick In Mauritania

Mohameden Ould-Mey