A book that monitors Salé in French travels

The Moroccan Society for Travel Researchers and Dar Rakaz in Jordan recently published a new book by contemporary history researcher Assia Wardah entitled “The Image of Salé in French Travels to Morocco between 1844-1925.”

This study was based on nineteen French trips dating back to the nineteenth century, and twenty-four trips belonging to the first quarter of the twentieth century, in addition to other trips that the researcher considered helpful for understanding, whose owners did not visit Salé, but included important information about it.

A statement issued by the Moroccan Association of Travel Researchers stated that the author said in her introduction to this book that “the subject of the study derived its importance from its reliance on the books of French travelers of various backgrounds and jobs, who visited Morocco during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and stopped by the city of Salé, and recorded a group of valuable observations that reflected the other’s view of the city.”

The same source added that the importance of the study also lies in presenting the visions and observations of these travelers about the city’s landmarks and its inhabitants, while trying to extrapolate what their minds produced in terms of attributes and descriptions of the city, through what they recorded of live observations and what they conveyed of representations, despite the difference in their jobs, the diversity of their inclinations, and the unity of their goals in most cases.

The same researcher highlighted that the type of jobs that the travelers performed, the nature of their scientific, cognitive, and religious background, and their political affiliations contributed to the observations they made and the descriptions they recorded about the city, adding that “the doctor’s observations differed from the examinations of the diplomat, merchant, scientist, monk, journalist, or other professions.”

Asiya Warda was keen to document the civilization of the city of Salé and its events through these travelers, and to subject what they recorded to analysis, scrutiny, and comparison, before presenting results and conclusions.