The Politics of Collaboration explores the initial fifteen years of the French protectorate in Morocco (1912–1927) when the independent Sharifian Empire ruled by a sultan claiming descent from the Prophet Mohammed was of political and economic importance to Britain, France, Germany, and Spain. Through European agreements and a treaty with the sultan, France finally established a protectorate over Morocco, a "new regime" that lasted for more than forty years.
Hubert Lyautey served as France's first commissioner resident general in Morocco for thirteen years. Despite significant and costly Moroccan resistance to the French presence, Lyautey and his team of military and civil administrators sought to create a protectorate in collaboration with the sultan and leaders of the Moroccan state. Yusef bin Hassan, the sultan of Morocco, was both reserved and outspoken, mindful of his precarious situation but proud of his importance, an advocate and an opponent of French plans and the all-over French touch.
William A. Hoisington Jr. reveals details on the working collaboration between Lyautey and Yusef bin Hassan, along with a new examination of the relationships between the protectorate's administrators and Morocco's leaders, the plans and interests of both France and Morocco during the protectorate, and the politics of this collaboration. The analysis that Hoisington provides in The Politics of Collaboration uncovers not only how the establishment of a protectorate in Morocco was a significant part of the Franco-Moroccan political sphere but also the social drama of empire in North Africa and the Islamic world.