The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution

LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts

This webinar, co-organised with the Society for Algerian Studies, was a launch for Dr. Natalya Vince's latest book 'The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution'. This book provides a new analysis of the contested history of one of the most violent wars of decolonisation of the twentieth century – the Algerian War/the Algerian Revolution between 1954 and 1962. It brings together an engaging account of its origins, course and legacies with an incisive examination of how interpretations of the conflict have shifted and why it continues to provoke intense debate. Locating the war in a century-long timeframe stretching from 1914 to the present, it multiplies the perspectives from which events can be seen. The pronouncements of politicians are explored alongside the testimony of rural women who provided logistical support for guerrillas in the National Liberation Front. The broader context of decolonisation and the Cold War is considered alongside the experiences of colonised men serving in the French army. Unpacking the historiography of the end of a colonial empire, the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and their post-colonial aftermaths, it provides an accessible insight into how history is written. Natalya Vince is a historian of modern and contemporary Algeria and France and reader in North African and French studies at the University of Portsmouth. She is interested in oral history, decolonisation, gender studies and state- and nation-building in Algeria and France, but also more broadly in Europe and Africa. Her works include Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2015), The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and the ongoing documentary project Generation Independence: a People’s History.