ALGERIA, HISTORY OF

history of the country from the time of the French conquest in the 19th century to the post-independence period. For an account of earlier history, see North Africa, history of. Algerian history before Ottoman rule reveals a country of which the western part was often closely associated with Morocco and the eastern part with Tunisia. Few extensive or long-lived Muslim dynasties originated or were based in Algeria. Geographically, Algeria is a difficult country to rule, with the Tell and Saharan Atlas mountain chains impeding easy north-south communication and the few good natural harbours having access to limited hinterlands. That a significant minority of Algerians were native Berber speakers (and many remain so to this day) indicates the greater resistance to Arabization in Algeria as contrasted with neighbouring Tunisia, not to mention Libya and Egypt. Nor was Ottoman Algeria in the early years of the 19th century nearly so developed in its nationalization of politics and government as Tunisia. Never an easy country to rule or to hold together, Algeria is today very much a nation-state. Much of the present-day sense of nationhood is the result of Algeria's history since 1830. Apologists for French rule in Algeria were wont to assert that France made Algeria. They were, at best, half right. It was the dialectic of colonial confrontation between the two communities on opposite sides of the Mediterranean that fostered Algerian nationalism. Modern Algeria must be viewed in light of its century and a half of colonial rule and confrontation with the West to be understood. Additional reading Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria: A History from 1830 to the Present (1989), provides an overall treatment from before 1830 to independence. Raphael Danziger, Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians: Resistance to the French and Internal Consolidation (1977), is an excellent book on the subject, with a thorough bibliography. David C. Gordon, The Passing of French Algeria (1966), emphasizes ideologies. Mostefa Lacheraf, L'Algrie: nation et socit, 2nd ed. (1978), is a revisionist work by a leading ideologue of the FLN. Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 19541962, rev. ed. (1987), is a perceptive interpretive history of these years. L. Carl Brown