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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa 2, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 696 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This second edition reflects the far-reaching changes the Middle East has undergone in recent years, making it more relevant and necessary than ever before. Covers the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, with major sections on Colonialism and Imperialism, the World Wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the United Nations' involvement in the region. Each country in the region is reviewed, detailing its population, economy, and government. ... Read more

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In recent years, a multicultural society and changing conceptions of French identity have been the source of considerable debate in scholarship, literature and the media in France. This book examines equally contested definitions of French identity from the past, but not those forged within the borders of the French 'Hexagon,' as French geographic space is sometimes called. It is the study of French sentiment in colonial Algeria of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, during the last quarter century of colonial rule in North Africa. It seeks to uncover elements of French identity that were generated past the Pyrenees and the Alps, beyond the bordering Atlantic Ocean, English Channel and Mediterranean Sea, outside the physical space so central to 'Frenchness.' It asks whether far-reaching state institutions could transform indigenous and settler populations in colonial Algeria - Europeans, Jews and Muslims - into French men and women. It examines what these individuals wrote of French sentiment in colonial Algeria. Did they articulate alternative definitions of French identity? The colonial 'periphery' is clearly quite central to France's evolving postcolonial sense of self.Colonial Algerian heterogeneity and the country's unique relationship to France make it especially rich site in which to study French national and cultural identities. French military conquest and the occupation of the North African coast established one of the oldest and largest settler colonies within the French Empire. Unlike other colonies, Algeria lay relatively close to metropolitan France, a daylong journey by ship from Marseilles. No colony other than Algeria was granted French departmental status. No other land administered under the auspices of the French Empire had as numerous a European settler population, many of whom became naturalized French citizens. This study suggests that although Algeria had become officially French, l'Algerie francaise, even at the pinnacle of its acceptance, was more diverse and more contested than its ti ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa 2, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1010 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This second edition reflects the far-reaching changes the Middle East has undergone in recent years, making it more relevant and necessary than ever before. Covers the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, with major sections on Colonialism and Imperialism, the World Wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the United Nations' involvement in the region. Each country in the region is reviewed, detailing its population, economy, and government. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Great Scholarship
Imperial Identities is a great book. It provides a wealth of information on Algeria's history under the French colonial rule. Those who read the book can learn a great deal about Algeria's history. It also shows, quite convincingly, how the French invented the Kabyle Myth to try to further their colonial aims in the country. (Elsewhere, Prof. Lorcin demonstrates how French imperialists imagined a link between French colonialism and the Roman influence in North Africa).

Prof. Lorcin has good intentions and she is knowledgeable about the topic at hand. In fact, she is more knowledgeable thanAlgerian scholars who could not see the continuation of the Kabyle Myth to this date.

Some useful historical information..
This book contains some useful historical information but if an in-depth study of the history of Colonial Algeria is required, one can find better works.

Lorcin's simplistic thesis on the "Kabyle Myth" (Berber Good/Arab bad) really adds nothing to the reader's knowledge of the actual differences between the ethnic groups in Algeria. The fact that the European powers divided colonial societies along racial, ethic, and religious lines is widely understood.

To gain a true understanding of the differences (something I sought but unfortunately did not find in this book) between the Berbers and Arabs in Algeria would require a study into the Algerian people and nation itself rather than just the colonial archives of French, British, and Belgium libraries.

A Great Study of Algeria
In working on my graduate thesis, this book proved to be the single most helpful book of the hundreds I looked at about Algeria. Lorcin carefully examines the way race and ethnicity were created by the French. Although she tends to overstate the pre-existing divisions between the Berber and Arab population prior to French occupation, her analysis clearly shows the colonial French tendency to group the world into good ethnic groups and bad ethnic groups. In this case the Berbers fit the first mold and the Arabs fit the latter in the French mindset. ... Read more