A collateral result of the post-September 11, American-driven war on terrorism and military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has been a growing interest among Americans and others in the history of French involvement in North Africa, particularly the Algerian War of Independence. Alistair Horne's 1977 study of this war, A Savage War of Peace, with a revised preface by the author evoking Afghanistan and Iraq, has just recently been reprinted (2006). Gillo Pontecorvo's 1965 film, The Battle of Algiers has been made widely available on DVD. Both are required reading and viewing for U.S. military and civilian officials involved with Afghanistan and Iraq. The publication of the present work, the second edition of Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (originally published in 1992) appears to be directed at a similar readership (despite the author's more modest claims); but it also responds specifically to a growing concern about the post, 1992 Islamist insurgency in Algeria. For certain observers, this insurrection appeared to be, at the same time, part of a worldwide Islamic war against the West and a continuation of the War of Independence that the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) had fought against the French Army between 1954 and 1962 to win Algerian independence. Thus John Ruedy has made a serious effort to update his book. He has revised chapter 8, "The Bendjedid Years-Readjustment and Crisis," to account for the social and economic crisis, the failed liberal reforms of the 1979-92 period, and the assumption of power by the military-dominated Haut Comite de Securite, following the forced resignation of President Chadli Bendjedid on January 11, 1992. Ruedy has added a ninth chapter, "Insurgency and the Pursuit of Democracy," which chronicles the responses of a succession of military-dominated governments to the Islamist threat and describes the major political, social, and economic developments in Algeria through the April 2004 re-election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika as president of the Algerian Republic. Ruedy has also revised the bibliographical essay and the bibliography which conclude the book. Like the first edition, the second continues to have particular significance for Anglophone readers in a field that is still dominated by French-language literature.
* H-Africa *
