The Invention Of Decolonization

In this account of the Algerian War's effect on French political structures and notions of national identity, Todd Shepard asserts that the separation of Algeria from France was truly a revolutionary event with lasting consequences for French social and political life. For more than a century, Algeria had been legally and administratively part of France; after the bloody war that concluded in 1962, it was other--its eight million Algerian residents deprived of French citizenship while hundreds of thousands of French pieds noirs were forced to return to a country that was never home. This rupture violated the universalism that had been the essence of French republican theory since the late eighteenth century. Shepard contends that because the amputation of Algeria from the French body politic was accomplished illegally and without explanation, its repercussions are responsible for many of the racial and religious tensions that confront France today. In portraying decolonization as an essential step in the inexorable "tide of history," the French state absolved itself of responsibility for the revolutionary change it was effecting. It thereby turned its back not only on the French of Algeria--Muslims in particular--but also on its own republican principles and the 1958 Constitution. From that point onward, debates over assimilation, identity, and citizenship--once focused on the Algerian "province/colony"--have troubled France itself. In addition to grappling with questions of race, citizenship, national identity, state institutions, and political debate, Shepard also addresses debates in Jewish history, gender history, and queer theory.

Exploring decolonization as both a historical era and an aspirational movement, Voices of Decolonization shows how and why mid-twentieth-century decolonization transformed societies and cultures and continues to shape the world today.

An examination of the complicated history between France and Algeria since the latter’s independence. While most related studies concentrate on the colonial era and Algeria's War of Independence, France and Algeria details the nations' postcolonial relationship. Phillip Naylor provides a philosophical approach, contending that France reformulated, rather than repudiated, “essential” strategic values during decolonization. It thus continued to pursue grandeur and independence, especially with regard to the Third World and Algeria, an essentialism that expedited France’s postcolonial transformation. But as a new nation, Algeria needed to pursue the “existential” project of self-definition. It became involved in state-building while also promulgating socialism, and it recognized how French oil concessions in the Sahara impeded its independence, leading to the industry's postcolonial decolonization. Finally, the postcolonial relationship has featured a human dimension involving immigrants, pieds-noirs (colonial settlers), and harkis (Algerian soldiers loyal to France), all of them central to bilateral relations. In this revised and updated edition of his seminal work, first published over twenty years ago, Naylor expands his coverage of the decolonization era, drawing on new information while continuing to study the ever-evolving relationship between the two countries. These new additions expose the continually shifting relations of power, perception, and identity between the two states.

The end of colonial rule in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean was one of the most important and dramatic developments of the twentieth century. In the decades after World War II, dozens of new states emerged as actors in global politics. Long-established imperial regimes collapsed, some more or less peacefully, others amid mass violence. This book takes an incisive look at decolonization and its long-term consequences, revealing it to be a coherent yet multidimensional process at the heart of modern history. Jan Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel trace the decline of European, American, and Japanese colonial supremacy from World War I to the 1990s. Providing a comparative perspective on the decolonization process, they shed light on its key aspects while taking into account the unique regional and imperial contexts in which it unfolded. Jansen and Osterhammel show how the seeds of decolonization were sown during the interwar period and argue that the geopolitical restructuring of the world was intrinsically connected to a sea change in the global normative order. They examine the economic repercussions of decolonization and its impact on international power structures, its consequences for envisioning world order, and the long shadow it continues to cast over new states and former colonial powers alike. Concise and authoritative, Decolonization is the essential introduction to this momentous chapter in history, the aftershocks of which are still being felt today. --

Decolonizing 1968 explores how activists in 1968 transformed university campuses across Europe and North Africa into sites of contestation where students, administrators, and state officials collided over definitions of modernity and nationhood after empire. Burleigh Hendrickson details protesters' versions of events to counterbalance more visible narratives that emerged from state-controlled media centers and ultimately describes how the very education systems put in place to serve the French state during the colonial period ended up functioning as the crucible of postcolonial revolt. Hendrickson not only unearths complex connections among activists and their transnational networks across Tunis, Paris, and Dakar but also weaves together their overlapping stories and participation in France's May '68. Using global protest to demonstrate the enduring links between France and its former colonies, Decolonizing 1968 traces the historical relationships between colonialism and 1968 activism, examining transnational networks that emerged and new human and immigrants' rights initiatives that directly followed. As a result, Hendrickson reveals that 1968 is not merely a flashpoint in the history of left-wing protest but a key turning point in the history of decolonization. Thanks to generous funding from Penn State and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

This book charts the previously untold story of the mobility of Indigenous peoples across vast distances, vividly reshaping what is known about decolonisation.

Decolonizing "Prehistory"critically examines and challenges the paradoxical role that modern historical-archaeological scholarship plays in adding legitimacy to, but also delegitimizing, contemporary colonialist practices. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this volume empowers Indigenous voices and offers a nuanced understanding of the American deep past.

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

After liberating itself from French colonial rule in one of the twentieth century's most brutal wars of independence, Algeria became a standard-bearer for the non-aligned movement. By the 1990s, however, its revolutionary political model had collapsed, degenerating into a savage conflict between the military and Islamist guerillas that killed some 200,000 citizens. In this lucid and gripping account, Martin Evans and John Phillips explore Algeria's recent and very bloody history, demonstrating how the high hopes of independence turned into anger as young Algerians grew increasingly alienated. Unemployed, frustrated by the corrupt military regime, and excluded by the West, the post-independence generation needed new heroes, and some found them in Osama bin Laden and the rising Islamist movement. Evans and Phillips trace the complex roots of this alienation, arguing that Algeria's predicament-political instability, pressing economic and social problems, bad governance, a disenfranchised youth-is emblematic of an arc of insecurity stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Looking back at the pre-colonial and colonial periods, they place Algeria's complex present into historical context, demonstrating how successive governments have manipulated the past for their own ends. The result is a fractured society with a complicated and bitter relationship with the Western powers-and an increasing tendency to export terrorism to France, America, and beyond.

This study is based on research in the former Bône municipal archives, generally barred to researchers since 1962. Prochaska concentrates on the formative decades of settler society and culture between 1870 and 1920. He describes in turn the economic, social, political, and cultural history of Bône through the First World War.