Savage War Of Peace Main

British historian Horne spent much of his career studying French military history. In this 1977 work, he turned his eye on France's failed colonial war in Algeria. His narrative is constructed through a synthesis of France's secondary literature on the bloody conflict and interviews with many of the key actors. He combines discussion of the conflict proper with analysis of the politics of Algeria's National Liberation Front, the European-Algerian community, and France itself, where the war led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic. In a new preface, the author discusses some of the parallels of the Algerian war with the US occupation of Iraq, including the futility of using torture and other brutal tactics against an insurgency, no matter how bloody that insurgency might be itself. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle 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 repressive torture.Nearly a half century has passed since this savagely fought war ended in Algeria’s independence, and yet—as Alistair Horne argues in his new preface to his now-classic work of history—its repercussions continue to be felt not only in Algeria and France, but throughout the world. Indeed from today’s vantage point the Algerian War looks like a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad—struggles in which questions of religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism take on a new and increasingly lethal intensity.A Savage War of Peace is the definitive history of the Algerian War, a book that brings that terrible and complicated struggle to life with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is essential reading for our own violent times as well as a lasting monument to the historian’s art.