Tangier, by Josh Shoemake – review

This may sound a little orientalist, but Tangier has some claim to being the most foreign city in the world. Back in the day, its position at the northernmost tip of Africa was regarded as the edge of civilisation — more than that, as the edge of what was known, the edge of everything. Here were the Pillars of Hercules, which in addition to performing the important function of holding up the sky, were said to be engraved with the words ‘nec plus ultra’: beyond this, nothing.

Since its foundation in the 5th century BC, the city has been variously controlled by the Carthaginians, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Arabs, the English (for a couple of decades in the 17th century) and the Spanish. Then, in 1923, it became the international zone, ruled by a French-Spanish-English-Italian-American-Belgian-Dutch-Portuguese-Moroccan council. By 1956, when the zone was finally disbanded, Tangier’s population was split 50-50 between foreigners (which is to say non-Moroccans) and locals.