In the middle of the eleventh century, an ethno-religious movement rose up in the western Sahara and conquered the Maghrib and much of the Iberian peninsula. It created a single Berber-Islamic realm in an area that stretched from the Niger and Senegal river valleys in the south to the Duero River in the north. The dynasty ruled for a century, but its new-founded capital would give the modern state of Morocco its name. A second empire followed. It reached further east to what is today Tunisia, outlived its predecessor, and survived into the second half of the thirteenth century. These first two Berber-Islamic empires of the western Maghrib created major cities (Marrakesh and Rabat) and brought about the region's most important political evolution of the medieval period, which exercised lasting influence on cultural, religious, and political forms and structures.

No single work in English has ventured a history of these empires, and studies on the individual dynasties are likewise scarce (until recently, scholars have long relied on the Arabic, French, and Spanish historiography). Bennison commandingly fills this void with the first English-language history of these two imperial domains, which appeared as the region came into its own as a major political and cultural player in the Mediterranean and broader Muslim community. She writes a lively and detailed account of two eventful centuries (c. 1050–1250) over eight chapters, progressing from a basic narrative of main actors and events to the finer texture of religion, social movements and institutions, and textual and material culture. The later chapters are exemplary in the way that they fill out the historical narrative without recourse to painting an artificially generic version of daily life; they bring fine detail to broad areas of the Maghrib's social and cultural worlds. Bennison, moreover, distinguishes clearly between these two empires, their different origins, and near-opposite theological positions, while she also draws out their important parallels, which justify bringing them together into one book.

In the introductory chapter, Bennison lays out three guiding premises: that these empires deserve to be ranked with the great Islamic empires of the east, thereby giving the Berbers their due in the story of Islamic Civilization; that they were profoundly different from each other and demand comparison and contrast; and that the modern notion of the divide between the African south and European north obscures the complex relationship between groups in the Maghrib and al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia). Before a brief description of the pre-Almoravid Maghrib, Bennison also argues for using Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima as a kind of frame, since the medieval Maghrib provided so much of the material for Ibn Khaldun's history and was the source for his theory of social and political evolution, with its particular focus on ‘the relationship between government and society and the role of tribes and the interplay between the two’ (6). Bennison thus acknowledges that her understanding of the evolution of the two empires derives at least partially from Khaldunian thought, whose terms and concepts she deploys lightly and judiciously throughout.

The chapters that follow provide evidence to the arguments of the introduction. Chapter Two, ‘The Almoravids: Striving in the path of God’ and Chapter Three, ‘The Almohads: Revelation, revolution and empire’ recount in under one hundred pages the broad historical development of the two empires and include useful maps and genealogies. Chapter Four, ‘Society in the Almoravid and Almohad eras, 1050–1250’, widens the scope of analysis, taking up the relationships between different parts of society. Bennison draws a brief theory of Islamic society, Almoravid and Almohad variations, and describes relations between ruling elites and subjects; social groups including slaves; town and country (or the more Maghribi-appropriate ḥadar and badw); as well as tribal structures and the social life of cities, women, and religious minorities. Chapter Five, ‘Economy and Trade Within and Beyond Imperial Frontiers, 1050–1250’, details what is known of the rural and urban economy, traders and trade routes, the state's administration, the fiscal system, and the effects of war and other disasters. Chapter Six, ‘Malikism, Mahdsim and Mysticism: Religion and learning, 1050–1250’, delves into the rich complexity of religion, culture, and learning in this often-revolutionary period, touching on piety, sectarianism, jihad, messianism, philosophy, literature, and Sufism. Chapter Seven, ‘“The most wondrous artifice”: Art and architecture of the Berber empires’, describes the evolution of pan-Maghribi and Andalusi-inflected styles and their relationship to social and ideological change; it includes discussions of urban development and other decorative and material cultural production including pottery and textiles. In the concluding chapter, Bennison summarizes her findings, underscoring important parallels with movements in the east, such as the Seljuks (who, as the first great Turkish Muslim empire, had to articulate new forms of Islamic legitimacy), and the broad changes signaled by both empires, including Almoravid contributions to the appearance of a new Sunnism and the Almohad display of Berber cultural and religious confidence. Bennison also considers the reasons for the collapse of each of these empires and their respective significance and long-term legacies.

Featuring a detailed chronological outline, a list of place names with Latin and Arabic designations, a glossary of Arabic terms, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and a useful index, The Almoravid and Almohad Empires is an introduction, synthesis, and major contribution to this fascinating and vitally important period in the history of the Islamic West. It will be accessible and engrossing to students and scholars alike.