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Peoples who have been waiting for their independence for a century, fighting for it for a generation, can afford to sit out a presidential term, or a year or two in the life of an old man in a hurry.
A Savage War of Peace
From 1954 through 1962, Algeria was embroiled in a civil war. Six French administrations were overthrown, the Fourth Republic was overthrown, De Gaulle was restored to power, and a civil war on French territory was on the verge of erupting. During the battle, almost a million Muslim Algerians perished, while tens of thousands of European immigrants were forced to flee. The conflict was defined above all by an unholy union of revolutionary violence and repressive torture. The fiercely fought war that resulted in Algerian independence has been almost half a century, and yet, as Alistair Horne argues in his new prologue to his now-classic book of history, its ramifications are being felt not only in Algeria and France, but across the world.
Indeed, the Algerian War appears to be a full-dress rehearsal for the amorphous struggle that ravaged the Balkans in the 1990s and now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad, in which questions of religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism take on a new and increasingly lethal intensity. The classic history of the Algerian War, A Savage War of Peace is a book that brings that horrible and convoluted conflict to life with insight, certainty, and unflagging pace. It is both required reading for our current tumultuous times and an enduring tribute to the historian's craft.
Peoples who have been waiting for their independence for a century, fighting for it for a generation, can afford to sit out a presidential term, or a year or two in the life of an old man in a hurry.
