Cultura Berbere

Les Berbères, Mémoire et Identité, Gabriel Camps
A nice and general survey on the history and customs of the Berber people of North Africa, with a strong emphasis on archaeological and anthropological aspects, but which also dicsusses other aspects such as politics and religion. Though well written, one of the main weaknesses of the book is that although it presents itself as an introduction intended for a broad audience, it is actually written for readers with already a good background on the history and geography of North Africa. For example, the book lacks a general introduction to the main historical phases and poplation patterns of the lands under discussion. Further, the book often refers to little-known (except for specialists) historical characters and geographical places without any word of clarification. For example kings are named with no detail on the precise epoch they lived in, or valleys named, without mentionning where they lie on today's political map, a real weakness when we know that ancient Berberia is now distributed among more than 5 different african countries. Apart from this strong weakness, the book provides invaluable information on this little-known subject of bereberic studies, for which much too few books are available. My overall opinion is that G. Camp's book is a great general overview of the main results of Berber research in the 20th century for people with a backround in the field. For others, who (like me) lacked such a background, some parts of the book will make a harder read, but the courageous reader will nevertheless be able to reap many fruits from this effort, and learn quite a lot of unexpected facts, among which the survival of prehistoric patterns on Berber pottery until our day, or the rich historical and archaeological heritage of North Africa in Prehistory and Antiquity. One indeed maybe forgets too easily that some great figures of "Western" culture such as Tertullian, Saint Augustine or Roman Emperor Marcus Opellius Macrinus were in fact Berber North Africans. Even roman emperor Septimius Severus, founder of the Severan Dynasty (193-211 AD), was also of (Berber or punic) North African descent.

Le guide de la culture berbère, Akli Haddadou
A nice and smooth general introduction to the berber culture, history and language. This book presents a broad and easy to access introduction to the general reader, and supposes no a priori knowledge of North African geography and history. The presentation of the different berber tribes, as well as the general history of the berbers, especially in the roman period, are particularly clear and interesting. The book is written in a popular style, which contrasts sharply with the rigorous academic style of Gabriel Camp's book (see my above review). All chapters of the book feature no unnecessary details, and although they therefore offer much less information than the former book, are at least understandable by a non-specialist reader. The notable exception to this aspect is the final chapter of the book, devoted to the berber language, which, as opposed to the rest of the book, is extermely long, specialized, even academic at times, and creates therefore some sort of lack of coherence in the book, due to the very introductive nature of all the preceding chapters. I would strongly recommend to the lay reader to read this book before Camp's "Les Berbères", but I believe one would be mistaken to stop after Haddadou's book if one desires a more thorough and deeply-rooted perspective on the historical and prehistoric roots of the berber people, aspects which G. Camp's book explore in a fascinating, though hard to access, way.