Resurrecting the Granary of Rome

Here is a review of Diana Davis' Resurrecting the Granary of Rome. It will be published in a forthcoming issue of the African Studies Review.

Diana K. Davis. Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007. Series in Ecology and History. Xv + 296 pp. Photographs. Figures. Maps. Color plates. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $59.95. Hardcover. $28.95. Paperback.

Diana Davis has provided an outstanding contribution to the field of comparative environmental history. In addition to Davis’ own field of geography, Resurrecting the Granary of Rome is informed by history, political philosophy, anthropology, forestry, and, strikingly, art history. The first study of its kind for the Maghreb, Resurrecting the Granary of Rome will provide a crucial touchstone for points of comparison to works already conducted in other contexts such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The central argument is that French colonial ideology, in the aftermath of the conquest of Algiers in the summer of 1830, created a narrative of decline. In this declensionist narrative, Arabs (and, to a lesser extent, Berbers) had carelessly squandered the natural patrimony and abundance of the Roman era. By blaming Algerians – and subsequently Moroccans and Tunisians – the French justified their colonial project. This story of destruction helped to delegitimize traditional modes of production, move Algerians off the land, control nomadism, and rationalize French settler land usurpation.

The declensionist narrative emerged from several different quarters. Using ancient Greeks and Roman historians such as Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and Ptolemy, Europeans of the 18th and early 19th century envisioned a North Africa that was fecund, fertile, and teeming with forested wildlife. Ironically, many of the ancients had not traveled themselves to the region, instead using information from other sources. Even at the dawn of French colonialism – the 1820s and 1830s – American, British, and French authors such as Shaler, Raynal, Peyssonnel, and Desfontaines did not cast North Africa as degraded or ruined by the indigenous population; to the contrary, they provided accounts of an abundant land.

In short order, however, arguments emerged that emphasized a decline from the heyday of Roman rule, beginning with the Arab conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. To her credit, Davis eschews a monocausal explanation for the transformation. She does, however, offer two primary reasons. First, the French military needed, quite literally, to fuel its pacification efforts of the 1830s and 1840s with forested timber. In turn, the colonial administration needed to provide land to encourage the immigration of French settlers. As early as 1834, the indigenous population began to be cited as responsible for ruining the land, providing the ecological hook on which to hang the argument for a mission civilisatrice. During the pacification of Constantine Province, the leader of a French cavalry troop said, all that needed to be said to the Algerians to justify taking land was, “During all the time that you have occupied the soil, it has been destroyed because you are nomads. If we want to we can take your lands” (p. 33). By the establishment of the Second Republic in 1848, and the official declaration of Algeria as “French territory,” the declensionist story was well entrenched and would only deepen through the establishment of the Tunisian (1881) and Moroccan (1912) protectorates. One account of the 1920s added: “Following the prosperous days of the Roman era, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco… vegetated, barely surviving…. All fell into ruin, of the splendid golden age of Roman Mauretania only a charred rocky desert remained…. Suddenly, a new breeze, and France… arrived to conquer so that Latin civilization could be rescued” (p. 4).

In addition to Resurrecting the Granary of Rome’s erudition and careful documentation, one of the most refreshing aspects of the book is the inclusion of stunning color plates. Featuring paintings by Huguet, Fromentin, Leleux, and Guillaumet, the plates vividly illustrate orientalist assumptions held about the Maghreb. Davis deftly weaves in an analysis of the illustrations, allowing her to round out her argument and make it even more persuasive.

The contemporary implications of the declensionist narrative are also well elaborated. Obviously, the landholding patterns, transformation of nomadic modes, and forestry development informed the colonial legacy and post-colonial political economy of the region. In Morocco, for example, Marshal Lyautey’s assertion that Morocco had been one of the granaries of Rome and once filled with lush gardens led to the emphasis in the 1920s on the development of Morocco’s citrus and irrigated vegetables – a production profile that persists to this day. (Such an emphasis straps Morocco’s hydrological resources and flies in the face of European and U.S. protectionism against agricultural imports.) Moreover, the economic and political disenfranchisement of the vast bulk of Maghrebis during colonialism led to the enrichment of settlers and a few indigenous elites, setting in motion an impoverishment that also continues to this day. Finally, post-colonial development ideology of international organizations often points to long-term environmental decline in the Maghreb as a justification for conservation and development projects, rather than examining carefully the colonial origins.

Perhaps an analogous narrative of decline, one that Davis only intimates, is the oft-invoked trope of Africa’s decline in the independence era. In this story, Africa has squandered the opportunity available to it upon independence. U.S. President Barack Obama even articulated such an argument in July 11, 2009, in Accra, Ghana, when he quickly absolved colonialism and Western involvement in the continent and for the “cynicism” and “despair” of the present generation.

In the end, Resurrecting the Granary of Rome is a superb, provocative volume. Davis has provided a work that will be valuable to students of the region and useful in courses on environmental history, comparative ecology studies, and African politics for some time to come.

Secret Son, by Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami's Secret Son is indeed a remarkable novel. I read her Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits a few weeks ago, and immediately turned to Secret Son. It takes place in Casablanca. This decade. Written in English. It is a gripping read about class and gender and identity.

The strange thing about it is that, while it may have a wider appeal, it also assumes a familiarity with Moroccan politics. I wonder who her audience really is. I read an interview with her in TelQuel - http://www.telquel-online.com/378/mage_culture_378.shtml It is a good interview - she comes across as an appealing person. (And she makes recommendations to other books to read - e.g., Absurdistan and The United States of Africa.)

Personally, however, I would love to interview her and ask: Who are you thinking of as you write? Who are you imagining as your readership? She leaves words in Moroccan Arabic untranslated, makes references to nuanced matters, invokes a history not likely familiar to an American reader. Maybe that's the way it is any time you read a novel by a novelist from another country.... Yet I'm not sure. I read Saramago's All the Names and Seeing not knowing much of anything about Portuguese history or politics.... Perhaps that affected my appreciation for the novels? I don't know.

Maybe it has to do with translation. Secret Son is written in English. She begins the novel with a quote from Gustavo Pérez Firmat: "The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you."

But, again, is she writing to Moroccans and Maghrebis living in North America? To Morocco watchers in the media and academia? To US policymakers seeking to "understand" contemporary Morocco? I wonder what would happen if Secret Son was translated into Moroccan Arabic and/or French - and was read in Morocco.....