A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962

Alistair Horne

mar 2011 · New York Review of Books

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This celebrated history of the Algerian War “captures a contingent moment in the conflict between the West and the Arab world”, reminding us that “modern history is not made by the ‘clash of civilizations’ but by people” (Harper’s Magazine).
 
“This universally acclaimed history . . . should have been mandatory reading for the civilian and military leaders who opted to invade Iraq.” —The Washington Times

The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and repressive torture.

Nearly a half century has passed since this savagely fought war ended in Algeria’s independence, and yet—as Alistair Horne argues in his new preface to his now-classic work of history—its repercussions continue to be felt not only in Algeria and France, but throughout the world. Indeed from today’s vantage point the Algerian War looks like a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad—struggles in which questions of religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism take on a new and increasingly lethal intensity.

A Savage War of Peace is the definitive history of the Algerian War, a book that brings that terrible and complicated struggle to life with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is essential reading for our own violent times as well as a lasting monument to the historian’s art.

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ALISTAIR HORNE is the author of 18 previous books, including The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, How Far from Austerlitz?: Napoleon 1805—1815 and the official biography of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. He is a fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, and lives in Oxfordshire. He was awarded the French Legion d’Honneur in 1993 and received a knighthood in 2003 for his work on French history.