History And The Culture Of Nationalism In Algeria

Colonialism denied Algeria its own history; nationalism reinvented it. James McDougall charts the creation of that history through colonialism to independence, exploring the struggle to define Algeria's past and determine the meaning of its nationhood. Through local histories, he analyses the relationship between history, Islamic culture and nationalism in Algeria. He confronts prevailing notions that nationalism emancipated Algerian history, and that Algeria's past has somehow determined its present, violence breeding violence, tragedy repeating itself. Instead, he argues, nationalism was a new kind of domination, in which multiple memories and possible futures were effaced. But the histories hidden by nationalism remain below the surface, and can be recovered to create alternative visions for the future. This is an exceptional and engaging book, rich in analysis and documentation. It will be read by colonial historians and social theorists as well as by scholars of the Middle East and North Africa.--Publisher description.

An exceptional analysis of the relationship between colonialism, Islamic culture and nationalism in Algeria.

"On 5 July 1962, Algeria became an independent nation, bringing to an end 132 years of French colonial rule. Algeria Revisited provides an opportunity to critically re-examine the colonial period, the iconic war of decolonisation that brought it to an end and the enduring legacies of these years. Given the apparent centrality of violence in this history, this volume asks how we might re-imagine conflict so as to better understand its forms and functions in both the colonial and postcolonial eras. It considers the constantly shifting balance of power between different groups in Algeria and how these have been used to re-fashion colonial relationships. Turning to the postcolonial period, the book explores the challenges Algerians have faced as they have sought to forge an identity as an independent postcolonial nation and how has this process been represented. The roles played by memory and forgetting are highlighted as part of the ongoing efforts by both Algeria and France to grapple with the complex legacies of their prolonged and tumultuous relationship. This interdisciplinary volume sheds light on these and other issues, offering new insights into the history, politics, society and culture of modern Algeria and its historical relationship with France"--

After over a century of intensive colonial rule and nearly eight years of revolutionary warfare, Algeria emerged in a state of total economic decrepitude and political backwardness. Yet in the two decades following independence in 1962 the country achieved a remarkable degree of political stability and economic growth. This book, first published in 1986, traces the shape of Algeria’s revolutionary experience through an analysis of the country’s culture, history, economy, politics, and foreign policy.

An essential introduction to the history of Algeria, spanning a period of five hundred years.

Algeria: Nation, Culture and Transnationalism covers a specific period of time (1988-2013) that has taken on a significantly different socio-political configuration to that of the first 25 years of post-independence Algeria (1962-1987). Since 1988, Algeria has seen democratic contestation,civil conflict between state and Islamist parties and, over the past 10 years, an uneasy peace. It was in the same period that the country endured economic decline and a painful transition to a more liberal economy. Less than twenty years ago Algeria was seen as a 'failed state' yet it is nowperceived as having a role in the 'stabilization' of North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring. Central to this transformation has been a turn in Algeria's economic fortunes. The Algerian army and political elite have, over the past 10 years, hugely benefitted from revenues derived from itshydrocarbon exports and use such revenues to manage a society in which a majority depend on state subsidies and public sector employment.Contemporary Algeria, argues Hugh Roberts (2003), is marked by an emerging post-nationalism and a sense that the elite has lost the political bearings that shaped the nation after 1962. There is an on-going tension generated by official positions that remain vigorously centripetal and a moreinformal, local yet transnational, dynamics that is often centrifugal in effect. The result is a society characterised by a range of oppositions that bear upon the evolution of the state and the lives of ordinary Algerians. Algeria has been dramatically marked by competing forces: state nationalismand grassroots nationalist disenchantment; Islamism and a version of Islam that accommodates greater plurality; a national economy - and this includes cultural production - that is responding to globalization; the conflict of the 1990s and its contemporary legacy. The contributions to this bookfocus on the impact of such forces across a range of interests in contemporary Algeria.

For states in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, the "Arab Spring" has had different implications and consequences, stemming from the politics of identity and the historical and political processes that have shaped development. This book focuses on how these factors interact with globalization and affect state formation.