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Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara Third ... - Scarecrow Press

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Preface<br />

As was the case in the second edition <strong>of</strong> this dictionary, the time period<br />

leading to my authorship <strong>of</strong> this completely rewritten new edition has<br />

been highly eventful with respect to the attempts by the international<br />

community to resolve the <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Sahara</strong> dispute. Only an outcome<br />

universally perceived as evenhanded and just would both foreclose the<br />

possibility <strong>of</strong> renewed war and fully satisfy an African continent sensitized<br />

(by virtue <strong>of</strong> its own experiences if nothing else) to issues <strong>of</strong> decolonization<br />

and self-determination. In spite <strong>of</strong> the fact that this is an<br />

entirely new presentation, I still feel (and readers <strong>of</strong> this volume should<br />

also feel) a considerable intellectual debt to Tony Hodges, who almost<br />

alone among English-speakers pioneered the study <strong>of</strong> <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Sahara</strong>’s<br />

history during his exhaustive researches beginning in the late 1970s. It<br />

is my hope, therefore, that this edition will be judged to have been faithful<br />

to the firm foundation that Tony Hodges constructed over two<br />

decades ago, although neither he nor anyone else besides myself should<br />

be held responsible for any errors <strong>of</strong> fact or omission contained in these<br />

pages.<br />

As far as specifics are concerned, the user will find several important<br />

differences in this book as opposed to the two earlier editions. Aside<br />

from the customary deletions from the main body <strong>of</strong> the dictionary<br />

made necessary by the passage <strong>of</strong> time and by the emergence <strong>of</strong> new issues<br />

and personages (and not all the omissions here are from the colonial<br />

or precolonial period), most existing entries have been thoroughly<br />

updated with new information, and there are nearly three dozen entirely<br />

new entries covering a wide sweep <strong>of</strong> the history and politics <strong>of</strong> <strong>Western</strong><br />

<strong>Sahara</strong>. The decade plus since the publication <strong>of</strong> the second edition<br />

has also brought the emergence <strong>of</strong> scores <strong>of</strong> new source materials devoted<br />

in one way or another to <strong>Western</strong> <strong>Sahara</strong> and the dispute surrounding<br />

it. As a result, I have totally reorganized the bibliography,<br />

xiii

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