Résumé

Rashid (Univ. of Kansas) offers a tour de force on the social (re)production of cities, Muslim cities in particular. This theory-heavy tome draws from history, philosophy, and sociology to accentuate "spatiality," which Rashid defines as immaterial reality. Citing prominent theorists (Bourdieu, Durkheim, Foucault, Lefebvre), Rashid theorizes cities as driven by the intangible ideas, ideals, and norms (i.e., spatiality) that shape them. He thus links space and society in a dialectical (reciprocal) relationship: society shapes and is shaped by physical space. Rashid's empirical gaze is turned on two colonial Muslim cities: Algiers and Zanzibar. He seems less fascinated by them as places than by the "spatiality" that lends them causal agency against colonial dominance. Even colonial subjects who worked for the colonizer returned home at night to subvert it in their recall of historical tales, projecting their ancestors as protagonists in wars of independence. Overall, the volume addresses the intellectual history and social (re)production of physical space, different approaches to studying the social (re)production of physical space, and physical space and spatiality in Muslim societies, as illustrated by Algiers and Zanzibar. A must read for anyone interested in the dialectics of space and society, it will be appreciated by scholars of urban studies, geography, urban sociology, and critical theory.