ISSN:
0022-278X
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
Ethnic Sciences
,
History
,
Political Science
,
Economics
Notes:
Certainly more books have been written on what was once French North Africa than on most regions of the continent. Yet of the volumes written prior to the independence of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, how few are now worth reading! This judgement is not retrospective; the evidence was at hand long ago.1 That admirable compendium of scholarly accomplishments, Jean Alazard et al., Histoire et historiens de l'Algerie (Paris, Alcan, 1931), tells us that, 100 years after the French conquest of that country, there was little interest in studying the living society of the Muslim majority except as it posed legal, administrative or philological problems. After World War II, the President of the Algiers Court of Appeal, Georges Surdon, noted in La France en Afrique du nord (Algiers, Edition Alger republicain, 1946) that ‘all the books which have been devoted to the study of the implantation of the French in Algeria have given a fanciful or insufficient sketch of the native population’. Yet one of the basic arguments of his book is that since Arab authority is traditionally based on the tribe rather than on any geographical unit, Arab nationalism in North Africa stems from invalid assumptions. If one wants to learn about the problems of contemporary North Africans, less than a score of works published in French or English before Libya gained independence in 1951, Morocco and Tunisia in 1956, and Algeria in 1962 still remain essential reading.2
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00004936
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