Book Reviews : Politics and Land Use Planning: The London Experience. By STEPHEN L. ELKIN. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. xi, 196. $11.95.)

• Author: Joel R. Dickinson
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297502800116
• Published date: 01 March 1975
• Date: 01 March 1975
• Subject Matter: Articles

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continues to influence and shape the modes and direction of political development
in the area. It is the consensus and principal conclusion of this volume that the
Berbers do not constitute an &dquo;ethnic problem&dquo; and that internal ethnic nationalism
or irredentism is a highly unlikely force in the Maghrib. The Berbers, despite their
distinctive language and customs, have no myth of a pre-Islamic common ancestry
and no tradition of cooperativist political efforts rationalized in strictly ethnic
terms. As Micaud concludes: &dquo;In the long run the growing force of the state ...
should facilitate the process of nation-building, as the notion of class or interest
group tends to replace the tenuous one of ethnic identification.&dquo;
While one would have preferred a more centrally organized and conceptually
tighter book, free of repetitions and inevitable overlappings of ideas, facts, and
interpretations, this multidimensional analysis of Berber society, its interaction with
Arab culture, civilization, and politics, and its integration into the fabric of modem
North African society remains a most important contribution to the meagre
English-language literature on the subject.
JOHN P. ENTELIS
Fordham University
Politics and Land Use Planning: The London Experience. By STEPHEN L. ELKIN.
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. xi, 196. $11.95.)
Studies of land use planning and politics have generally emphasized the
various problems, roadblocks, and dead-ends planning agencies must confront, as
well as the manner in which patterns of politics work to impede and confuse plan-
ning endeavors. This has particularly been the outlook characterizing analyses
of the city planning process in the United States, where several observers have
even gone so far as to declare that planning simply cannot be carried out success-
fully within the context of American cities. Yet, at the same time, claims persist that
planning in London has achieved almost exalted...