Laurie A. Brand, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 246 pages.

In the first two chapters, she frames her study’s contribution to political science and other treatments of emigration, particularly in a Middle Eastern and North African context. Brand asserts that her research points to an expanded understanding of the concept of sovereignty, “given the continuous re- and de-constructing of sovereignty over the years” and “challenge to the inside-outside dichotomy regarding immigrant and emigrant communities” (p. 44). She returns to this theme in her conclusion by asserting that the authority of the originating states is resilient and continues to be relevant to nationals who live outside its geographic boundaries.

Her next chapter deals specifically with Morocco and its attempt to exert political, economic, and cultural influence over its citizens in France, Spain, The Netherlands, and elsewhere. She sees a desire to control their financial remittances as a significant motivator for the state’s desire to control Moroccans living abroad. However, she cautions that state actions cannot be seen in purely economic terms, for both the state and those Moroccans living abroad see the maintenance of connections as a matter of symbolic importance and (national) identity preservation. The author weaves these factors together while outlining the historical trajectory of state policies toward emigrants and concludes that the Moroccan state’s conception of its sovereignty extends past geographic boundaries and into less tangible realms.