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Alice Wilson, Sovereignty in Exile: A Saharan Liberation Movement Governs, The Ethnography of Political Violence (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Pp. 312. $59.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780812248494

“Free Speech except for Palestine,” a phrase that circulates among progressive students and academics, and in legal circles, is here on full display and should resonate as a warning about the possible futures where speech is monitored and punished, part of a larger war on the academy mounted by right-wing politicians and commentators. The experiences of MENA anthropologists stand as a sort of bellwether, a warning about what deviating from dominant narratives can entail. The present atmosphere does not bode well for the academy as a place for the exchange of ideas or even at its most basic the formulation and sharing of facts. In the era of the neoliberal university and its growing dependence on donors as state-funding shrinks, there are increasing calls to dilute tenure. The Middle East will be an interesting test site for the diminution of “free speech.” In a region already so heavily freighted by censorship in the academy, how will it fare in the face of new attempts to control speech?