Locating social analysis in the Maghrib

As an introduction to this special issue, this essay surveys problems of scale and perspective in historical and social scientific scholarship on the Maghrib. It locates the studies collected in this volume in the longer perspective of trends in scholarship on the region, identifies some analytical challenges shared across disciplines, and suggests some ways of addressing the difficulties of articulating different (local, regional, national, and global) levels of analysis. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.