BOOK REVIEWS 1659 JOHN P. ENTELIS Fordham University doi:10.1093/ehr/cey327 A History of Algeria, by James McDougall (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2017; pp. xvi + 432. £23.99). Writing a history of Algeria is no easy task. It involves decisions—many implicitly political—regarding what precisely is meant by the ‘Algerian EHR, CXXXIII. 565 (December 2018) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/133/565/1659/5111817 by guest on 01 March 2021 Part Two is devoted to ‘identity construction and contestation’, with three chapters providing complementary interpretations of the contested nature of Algerian identity as expressed in the writings of such provocative authors as Jean Sénac, Assia Djebar and Maïssa Bey, and two chapters assessing the role of cinema in configuring and reconfiguring how Algeria sees itself and wants to be seen—including a critical reinterpretation of the role of Algerian women in the liberation struggle as presented in the iconic movie, The Battle of Algiers (1966). The third and last part focuses on issues that still divide France itself in relation to the failed end of the French project in Algeria, with particular attention to both the symbolic and substantive views of the pieds-noirs, the former European settlers in Algeria now living in France but still struggling to validate their memory of an idealised French Algeria from which they had fled. The narrative of ‘unrecognised suffering’ still permeates the thinking and activities of the pieds-noirs communities whose quickly diminishing presence in France makes it unlikely that their place in France’s postcolonial memory landscape will long endure into the future. The conclusion, by the distinguished historian of Algeria, James McDougall, presents a sophisticated, nuanced and reflective analysis of Algerian cultural production in the context of legitimising the state’s official national identity in his chapter, ‘Culture as war by other means: community, conflict and cultural revolution, 1967–1981’. The author’s purpose is ‘to connect the field of cultural production and the cultural politics of post-independence Algeria’ (p. 236). The efforts of the Boumediene regime in particular to balance the conflicting cultural orientations that defined post-independence Algeria proved difficult at best. As McDougall observes, Boumediene’s ‘cultural revolution [that] had been intended by the regime to provide legitimation in the cultural and religious fields for its redistributive and technologically modernizing social project’ stalled in the 1970s and finally fell apart by the mid-1980s under the Benjedid presidency that shifted from a socialist to a more liberal political economy. One of the key conclusions in ‘revisiting Algeria’ is the degree to which the highly contested, if not violent, nature of Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle has yet to find resolution in the half-century after independence. Indeed, as the insightful chapters in this volume clearly demonstrate, the country remains at war with itself at the most basic level of historical, cultural and political identity over which an autocratic political order—buttressed by a military-industrial complex—imposes its will, at times through co-optation, at times through coercion. More so than its neighbours to the east and to the west, Algeria today is characterised by a pluralistic civil society with democratic aspirations ruled over by an authoritarian state. This book provides the necessary historical context within which to understand and appreciate this political conundrum. 1660 BOOK REVIEWS EHR, CXXXIII. 565 (December 2018) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/133/565/1659/5111817 by guest on 01 March 2021 people’, how to reconcile the competing accusations and blame entrenched within post-colonial identity politics and the extent to which European colonialism explains the conflicts and violence of post-independence states. In this book, James McDougall balances these larger questions to produce a notable work sensitive to both Algeria’s conflict-ridden political history and the experiences which Algerians faced in coming to terms with the traumas of colonisation, revolution and civil war. Covering five centuries, the book traces the formation of Algerian society through the years of Ottoman and French rule to the current Bouteflika government presiding over a country ‘in the autumnal shadow of its own revolutions’, as McDougall writes (p. 336). In line with recent scholarship on the early modern Ottoman Maghrib, McDougall indicates that efforts at state-building and centralisation were well underway in the region prior to the French invasion and occupation. These processes generated social and political unrest that would be sustained and exacerbated by colonialism. Moreover, colonial resistance offered opportunities to realise alternative forms of state-building, as evidenced by Abd al-Qādir’s efforts to enlist the aid of tribal elites and integrate them into his short-lived emirate. Even with French ‘pacification’ achieved, McDougall insists that Algerians were never simply a dominated and colonised population. Entrenched elite families managed to retain power and influence at the local levels of society by entering into bureaucratic and military positions and serving as interlocutors between the colonial regime and their respective communities. The inter-war period witnessed a stunning degree of popular political agitation among Algerians as groups such as the Algerian People’s Party and Ben Badis’ Islamic party mobilised supporters and pushed for reform. McDougall examines these movements in some detail, concluding that Algerian politics were riven by factional rivalries and never coalesced into a single national movement. Splits between Arabs and Berbers, radical and religious ideologues, pro-republican and cultural autonomists presented varying interpretations of the ‘Algerian people’. Nonetheless, the contestations of the 1930s provided the context in which an Algerian nation was imagined, transforming an Algerian Muslim community defined under the colonial statut personnel from a cultural entity into a political one (pp. 176–7). If these developments provide the backdrop for the Algerian war and revolution, they do not explain the dynamics that drove Algeria’s violent path towards independence after 1954, according to McDougall. Rivalries within the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) frequently determined the course of the revolution, conditioning the logics of incorporation, violence and clientelism that would propel the war and shape the post-colonial Algerian state. The FLN’s categorical distinction between the political and military and its commitment to ‘collective leadership’ take centre stage in McDougall’s account. Declarations of Algerian unity, increasingly defined in terms of a Muslim-Arab Algerian people, masked the factional interests and covert power politics of the military leadership. The FLN became Algeria’s vanguard party, presaging a political system that refused to recognise multiple and competing interests. Yet, at the same time, the FLN was the civilian front for powerful military factions that would continue to play a key role in post-colonial politics. While Algerian independence inspired aspirations for national unity, Third World economic autonomy and Arab solidarity, these lofty values were not the core legacies of the war and revolution. Rather, what resulted was BOOK REVIEWS 1661 GAVIN MURRAY-MILLER Cardiff University doi:10.1093/ehr/cey328 Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire, by Tracey Banivanua Mar (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2016; pp. xix + 265. £64.99). The decolonisation of the Pacific islands is generally considered one of the final chapters in the history of the end of empire—Samoa was the first state to gain independence, in 1962, and the process continued until 1980. It is also thought to have involved little pressure by militant Indigenous populations and political groups, with independence given by a Britain eager to disengage from Oceania, not given by the United States and France, which for strategic EHR, CXXXIII. 565 (December 2018) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/133/565/1659/5111817 by guest on 01 March 2021 an assertive and popular political culture coupled with a political system of collective leadership built upon secretive factions and military solidarities. These twin features, in McDougall’s opinion, have constituted the hallmark features of Algerian politics and society since independence. As McDougall claims, the two primary themes running through his history are concerned with the creation of Algerian political structures and the robust social forces that have often revealed the limits of state power (pp. 3–4). This dual focus is particularly informative when discussing the lead up to Algeria’s ‘dark decade’. Beginning in the late 1970s, a renewed Berber cultural movement and ascendant Islamic fundamentalism would provide points of opposition to the regime, ultimately compelling the Chadli government to call for multi-party elections in the face of a mounting social and economic crisis. The military coup to maintain the status quo in 1991, and the resulting war against Islamists that ferociously divided the country, demonstrated the inherent tension between social forces on the ground and the authoritarian state. Despite the violent social and political conflicts of the 1990s, the civil war did not motivate much-needed reforms in its aftermath and actually reinforced the clientelism and informal networks of the old system. In his final assessment, McDougall offers a sober picture of Algeria at present, painting an image of a ruling gerontocracy resistant to change, a citizenry disgusted with politics and a stagnant political system with a surprising capacity to reproduce itself. While such a comprehensive work may appear a synthesis, McDougall draws upon a range of primary sources and interviews in crafting his nuanced arguments, offering a valuable piece of scholarship aimed at both the student as well as the expert. One may feel that his treatment of European colonists is somewhat simplified. The ‘political and cultural’ commonalities he attributes to the settler community appear overstated, as the work of Jonathan Gosnell and others suggests, and efforts by European colonists and the colonial administration to articulate divergent ideas of an ‘Algerian people’ are treated only in passing as a backdrop for the birth of counter-claims levied by emergent Algerian nationalists. These small details do not, however, detract from the overall thorough treatment of a complex and contentious history.