Stefania Pandolfo's Impasse of the Angels is a fascinating study of a Moroccan society as it defines itself in the present-day post-colonial Maghrib. Starting at a point of crisis for the people in question (the move from the old village to the new), the author artfully presents the understanding of identity (personal, social, regional, and even national) as precisely the result of such conflicts, both historical and present: the fracturing and reunification, wounding and healing, produced by mutually opposed and yet interacting processes.