Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation

By John Ruedy. Indiana University Press, 1992, 290 pp. List: $16.95; AET: $12.95 for one, $16.95 for two.

Reviewed by Greg Noakes

For the last century and a half, Algeria has been a trendsetter in the Arab world. Many of the political, ideological, economic and cultural currents in 19th and 20th century Arab history have found their most extreme expression in this North African country.

When much of the Middle East fell under the imperialist yoke, suffering was greatest in Algeria, which underwent 132 years of intensive French settler colonialism and the near-total suppression of indigenous Algerian society. With the era of Arab independence, Algerians waged one of the longest, and certainly the bloodiest, struggle for freedom in the region. The Algerian war of independence continued for nearly eight years and claimed over a million victims.

Independent Algeria has been an international leader in non-aligned politics, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian and other national liberation struggles, a principal architect of the Arab oil embargo after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, a leading proponent of the state capitalist economic system adopted by a number of Arab countries, and a key interlocutor between the Middle East and the West. Algeria was also one of the first Arab countries to institute a multiparty democratic system with truly free elections. Presently it is the scene of violent conflict between the secular Arab order and the rising tide of Islamism, and thus the subject of considerable international attention.

In addition to being continually on the cutting edge, Algeria's size makes it important. The second largest country in Africa in terms of land mass, its roughly 28 million population also makes it one of the Arab world's most populous nations. Its massive oil and gas reserves make it an important player in the international petroleum market, while its geographical proximity to Europe gives Algeria considerable geopolitical significance.

All of this makes Algeria worthy of attention from observers and students of the Arab world. To some degree, the country provides a microcosm of the region, and is an excellent Middle Eastern case study for disciplines as diverse as political science, economic development, linguistic anthropology and women's studies.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of academic work on Algeria has been conducted in French, since the histories of France and Algeria have been intertwined for nearly two centuries. Over the last two decades, however, a number of excellent English-language books on various periods of Algerian history have appeared, among them British historian Alistair Horne's chronicle of the Algerian revolution, A Savage War of Peace; a series of excellent studies of independent Algeria by Fordham University's John Entelis; and several works in translation published by the University of Texas at Austin. What has been lacking up to this point, however, has been a serious single-volume English-language work on Algerian history as a whole.

John Ruedy's Modern Algeria fills that void admirably. A professor at Georgetown University, Ruedy has drawn on a vast body of literature, as well as decades of his own research, to assemble an informative and entertaining narrative of historical events and an overview of important issues in Algerian historiography. As Ruedy himself writes, he has "not attempted a major recasting of Algerian history," but rather a solid introduction to Algeria and its past.

The challenge presented by such an effort should not be underestimated, since Algerian history is seldom neat and rarely simple. Pre-colonial Algeria was a pastiche of Ottoman suzerains, regional chieftains, local religious leaders and rival mystical brotherhoods, while the European conquest of the entire country lasted nearly a century. France's colonial "civilizing mission" assumed a variety of forms in different parts of the country, and ranged from annihilating the native inhabitants to trying to assimilate them. A concise explanation of the complex economic transformation of the country during the colonial period, and then its second transformation after independence, is itself a monumental task.

Yet Ruedy has struck a delicate balance between painstaking attention to detail and respect for larger historical trends in Modern Algeria. While carefully tracing the progress of individual events in the country, Ruedy never loses the thread of his narrative, which places isolated episodes in a broader historical context.

The reader understands, for example, the importance of the Emir Abd al Qadir, leader of the opposition to the French invasion in 1830, as a symbol not only of resistance to the colonizer but of Algerian nationhood itself. Elsewhere, Ruedy demonstrates that the French government's reluctance to make even minor concessions to Algerian moderates in the 1930s and '40s inevitably led to militant Algerian nationalism and, ultimately, revolution in the 1950s and '60s.

Modern Algeria is especially strong on economic issues, which are crucial to understanding Algerian history. Ruedy documents the impact of French colonization on the traditional Algerian economy, and explains the vast social upheaval it produced. Economic development during the colonial period was severely distorted, with the European minority possessing nearly all of the most productive land and the entire economic system serving as a mere satellite to the economy of Metropolitan France.

Ruedy also examines the steps taken by independent Algeria's leaders to create "industrializing industries" designed to spark growth and industrial demand in order to make up for the almost total lack of a domestic industrial sector at independence. Algeria's greatest economic experiment, rapid industrialization, may prove to be its worst economic mistake, as massive foreign debt and regional and sectoral distortion continue to plague the country. Ruedy's economic analyses are clear and well illustrated by the numerous charts, tables and maps scattered throughout the text, and are easily understood even by non-specialists.

Serious students of Algeria and those whose interest is piqued by Ruedy's overview of the nation's history will be well served by both the book's extensive bibliography and particularly the author's bibliographical essay at the end of the text. Ruedy's discussion of the available literature on Algeria in English, French and Arabic is invaluable for those looking for further information on various aspects of the country and its development.

The book's only shortcoming is the scant attention paid to Algeria's ground-breaking democratic experiment, which began with rioting in October 1988 and ended in January 1992 with the imposition of martial law. Readers looking for an in-depth treatment of the failure of democracy in Algeria will be disappointed in the eight pages devoted to post-October 1988 events. John Ruedy has set out to write about Algerian history, however, and since the events in question have yet to be resolved, it is still too early to place them in context. What the reader will find instead is the historical background which produced the democratic opening and, arguably, led to its collapse.

Newcomers to Algerian history could not find a better introduction than Modern Algeria, while those who know the country will find the text a useful reference. Faced with more than 200 years of material, John Ruedy has succeeded in making complex issues and confusing events simple, but never simplistic.

Greg Noakes is the news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.