Although war was never formally declared, the Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused six French governments to fall, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, brought De Gaulle back to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture.
The war made headlines around the world, and at the time it seemed like a French affair: Now, this brutal and intractable conflict looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one-a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that is now ravaging Iraq, and in which religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism assume previously unimagined degrees of intensity.
Originally published in 1977, "A Savage War of Peace" was immediately proclaimed by experts of varied political sympathies to be "the" history of the Algerian War, a book that not only does justice to its Byzantine intricacies, but that does so with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is these qualities that make "A Savage War of Peace"" "not only essential reading for anyone who wishes to investigate this dark stretch of history but a lasting monument of the historian's art.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Map of Algeria
Map of ALgiers
Preface
PART ONE: Prelude 1830-1954
"A Town of Great Interest"
""Ici, c'est la France""
In the Middle of the Ford
PART TWO: The War 1954-1958
All Saint's Day, 1954
The Sorcerer's Cauldron
TheFLN: From Bandung to Soummam
The Second Fronts of Guy Mollett
"Why We Must Win"
The Battle of Algiers
Lost Round for the FLN
The World Takes Notice
"Le Dernier Quart d'Heure"
PART THREE: The Hardest of ALl Victories 1958-1962
A Kind Resurrection
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