Tunisia : the political economy of reform /

A superb collection of 13 essays on the political, economic, and social problems of modern Tunisia, focused primarily upon the post-Bourguiba era, November 7, 1987, to the present. Ably edited by Zartman, one of the foremost Maghreb specialists in the US, this work is the fruit of a School of Advanced International Studies Conference on contemporary Tunisia held in April 1989. The essays are of such uniformly high quality that the collection should remain a classic analysis of contemporary Tunisia for some time to come. The strongest contributions to the collection are those analyzing political reform and the Islamic movement in Tunisia. The four essays on economic restructuring are of a highly technical character and of primary interest only to the specialist. Predictions concerning the fate of the current regime of President Ben Ali are guardedly pessimistic. As Professor Susan Waltz expresses it, "Old patterns of personal rule are reestablishing themselves." Outstanding bibliography and good index. Strongly recommended for faculty, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates.-L. P. Fickett Jr., Mary Washington College