The Algerian War and the French Army, 1954-62: ...

Book Description:
The Algerian War 1954-62 was one of the most prolonged and violent examples of decolonization. Bringing to an end 132 years of French rule, the Algerian struggle caused the fall of six French prime ministers, the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and expulsion of one million French settlers. This volume, bringing together leading experts in the field, focuses on one of the key actors in the drama - the French army. They show that the Algerian War was just as much about conflicts of ideas, beliefs and loyalties as it was about simple military operations. In this way, the collection goes beyond polemic and recrimination to explore the many and varied nuances of what was one of the historically most important of the grand style colonial wars.

Good Read but......:
It's been a long time coming, since A Horne's 'A Savage War Of Peace', but this new perspective on the Algerian war of independence 1954-62, while being contemporary in its demystification and breakdown of the ideologies and silence that have controlled the interpretation of this conflict, still left a lot to be desired. The papers presented by Zervoudakis (From Indochina to Algeria), Shipway (Algeria and the official mind), Evans(The Harkis)and Rollet(Remembering the Algerian war) were excellent. However the book was the product of a conference held at Salford University in 1996 and in a way this does excuse the intellectual indulgence and Anglo-Saxon perspective contained within many chapters of the book. I think it would have been a lot more rewarding if the book had contained more commentary on the French military participants (Massu, Bigeard, Trinquier and Jean Pierre), rather than centre on media images, Gillo Pontecorvo's filmatic work 'The Battle Of Algiers' and the fictional character of Colonel Mattheiu. The title of the book, after all, was the the Algerian War And The French Army! It doesn't beat Larteguy's 'The Centurions' for the nitty-gritty of a very ugly insurgent war and the motivations behind the French military participants, but it's a lot cheaper at $115 dollars and still is a great read.