Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A particularly vicious and bloody civil war has racked Algeria for a decade. Amnesty International notes that since 1992, in a population of 28 million, 80,000 people have been reported killed, and the actual total is almost certainly higher. This terrible war overshadows Algeria's long and complex history and its prominence on the world economic stage--second in size among African nations, Algeria has the longest Mediterranean coastline and contains the world's fifth-largest natural gas reserves. Algeria, 1830-2000 is a comprehensive narrative history of the country. Benjamin Stora, widely recognized as the leading expert on Algeria, presents the story of this turbulent area from the start of formal French colonialism in the early nineteenth century, through the prolonged war for independence in the latter 1950s, to the internal strife of the present day. This book adapts and updates three short volumes published originally in French by La D couverte. For this English edition, Stora has written a new introductory chapter on Algeria's colonial period (1830-1954) and has revised the final section to bring the volume up to date.
Table of Contents
The "phony war" (November 1954-July 1955) -- The open war (August 1955-December 1956) -- The cruel war (1957) -- The war of the Algerians (1954-1958) -- De Gaulle and the war (1958-1959) -- The wars within the war (1960-1961) -- The war and French society (1955-1962) -- The terrible end of war -- A war's toll -- Summer 1962 -- Ben Bella's Algeria (1962-1965) -- Boumâedienne, the state, and the institutions -- Economic choices and foreign policy (1965-1978) -- Society and culture in Algeria (1962-1982) -- The jamming of the system (1979-1988) -- The crisis of October 1988 and its consequences -- Algeria at war.