Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History (Cornell Classics in Philosophy)

Rating:
Summary: Clear, detailed, rigorously factual, and up-to-date
Review: Algeria 1830-2000: A Short History directly addresses the history and root causes of the deadly, long-term civil war that has killed at least 80,000 people out of this nation of 28 million. Written with painstaking detail about the 1954-1962 Algerian civil war and the nation's history since its independence, Algeria 1830-2000 features college-level narration and analysis supplemented by tables, a very convenient acronym list, a 26-page chronology, and an index. Benjamin Stora (Professor of History at the University of Paris, Saint Denis) has written a new introductory chapter on Algeria's colonial period (1830-1954) and revised the final section with up-to-date information, making Algeria 1830-2000 a clear, detailed, rigorously factual, and up-to-date account of this troubled nation from 1830 down to the present day.

Rating:
Summary: A not so comprehensive history of Algeria since 1830
Review: As an introduction to Algerian history from 1830 to 2000 this book is very dissappointing. Although the Amazon Description does say that the book 'adapts and updates three short volumes' it also says that the history is 'comprehensive'. I was more than surprised, then, to reach 1954 on page 27 of the 240 text pages. The book also fizzles out somewhere during the civil war, in about 1992. After that I get the impression of a hastily written conclusion. Therefore the book should be read as a history of Algeria from 1954 to about 1992. And for its coverage of this history I give the two stars.
There is reasonable analysis of the '54 to '92 period given that the book is quite small. The statistics on demographics, industry and agriculture are well presented. The coverage of the many French, European and Algerian groups jostling for power before and during the independence war is good. The motivations of the various political and terror groups during the same period is well covered, as is the consequent turmoil in France. The book speeds up quite a bit to cover the period between the independence and civil wars and the period of the civil war itself, and is less satisfying in consequence.
However, I never got over feeling cheated by the title, and the editing of the book left a lot to be desired. When a book written by a French academic on Algeria begins with 'If Americans have any image at all of Algeria...' it is somewhat jarring, even granting that this forward is written by an American. The 'adaptation of three short volumes' is more than obvious when you read the introductory chapter to the war of independence (from p27) because it restates, as if for the first time, much of what has concluded the previous background chapter. Similarly, near the end of the book the grammatical tense suddenly changes from past to present mid chapter (p226). Throughout the book there are many presumptions of knowledge (such as the '"fly-whisk attack" on the French consul' on page 3, which is not explained), characters participate in the action before they are introduced, there are jolts of deja-vu for the reader (p47 has 'Public opinion balked at the extension of military service to twenty-eight months' and p48 has 'the length of military service was extended to nearly thirty months'), there is English useage which does not quite read as English due to transliteration problems or idiomatic useages, and there are strange statements such as 'The next day his funeral occasioned truly brutal ratonnades (Arab-bashings), which caused several Muslim casualties'. Finally, the exclamation marks sometimes appended to statistics which the author finds surprising (see p65) remind me of canned laughter on television soaps.
The book was useful, but its presumption prior knowledge of its topics makes it unsuitable as an introduction to Algerian history. The book is a cobbling together of different pieces and it needs more editing to help readability. Finally, again, the title is at best misleading, at worst simply dishonest.