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Context and Historiography

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The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution

Abstract

This chapter provides key information about Algeria in the context of the French empire which is central to understanding the origins, course and legacies of the 1954–62 conflict. Legally, Algeria was an integral part of metropolitan France—not a colony—although the vast majority of the population of Algeria was excluded from the rights of full French citizenship on the basis of their supposed cultural differences. Algeria also had a large settler population: in 1954, there were 8.5 autochthonous Algerians for every one inhabitant of European origin. Four major historiographical shifts, explored throughout the book, are set out: (1) going beyond exclusively national histories of the Algerian War/Algerian Revolution, situating the conflict within local, transnational and global histories; (2) exploring the relationship between politics and violence, moving away from essentialising narratives of inevitable violence and speculative interpretations of ‘missed opportunities’ for peaceful solutions; (3) locating debates about the nature of Algerian nationalism within their political contexts; and (4) questioning the notions of ‘unhealed wounds’ and ‘Franco-Algerian memory wars’ as the best interpretative lenses to understand the legacies of the conflict, instead emphasising how the war is used to provide tools to talk about political and social issues in the present in Algeria and France.

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  1. School of Area Studies, History, Politics and Literature, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Natalya Vince

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Correspondence to Natalya Vince .

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Vince, N. (2020). Context and Historiography. In: The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54264-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54264-1_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54263-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54264-1

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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