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A Savage War of Peace

Algeria 1954-1962

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A Savage War of Peace

By: Alistair Horne
Narrated by: James Adams
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About this listen

 The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture.

At the time, this brutal, intractable conflict seemed like a French affair. But from the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one: a full-dress rehearsal for the amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, struggles in which religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism assume unparalleled degrees of intensity.

©1977 Alistair Horne (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Africa Europe France Military War Middle East Imperialism Morocco Iran Middle Ages Russia Refugee Soviet Union Latin American Socialism Social justice Self-Determination Crusade

Critic reviews

"[This] universally acclaimed history...should have been mandatory reading for the civilian and military leaders who opted to invade Iraq." ( Washington Times)
All stars
Most relevant
Easily accessible - I went from knowing almost nothing about the war to wanting to know more and undertake further reading

Highly recommended

Brilliant

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A wonderful book with analysis that stands the test of the 30+ years since it has been written. It may have a few too many details for the casual listener. The narrator is good but he can't really pronounce French or Arabic which is a major handicap in a book on French North Africa

Great analysis

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This is a wonderfully told story of an often horrific series of events which chronicle one of the more tragic chapters in the history of the decline and fall of colonialism. It is far more than just a telling of events - it takes great pains to examine the motivations and thinking of both sides, and explains how some of France's apparently most loyal subjects could contemplate revolt and the murder of their leader. With hindsight it all seems like tragically pointless violence, but this book puts those events on context, and clearly benefits from considerable correspondence and interviews with many of the major participants.

A good book is easily spoiled by a poor reader, but this one is top notch. Always clear, and never sounds like he is tiring of what he is reading. The reviewer that said 5% of the text was in French is talking nonsense. Yes there are a few phrases which are untranslated, and that is indeed a pity for those of us with only a long-forgotten school-boy French to rely on, but it does not materially impair a thoroughly enjoyable book that illuminates one of the more terrible episodes in the recent history of Europe's retreat from empire, and explains events that deserve to be better known in the English-speaking world.

Just superb

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Well researched,well read,and balanced coverage of the war.Sadly 5% of the language(comments, statements etc)is in untranslaed French as it is assumed you are a fluent French speaker which is very very irritating

parlez vous francais ??

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A huge book that tackles a huge subject matter.
Excellently read. The depth of research is clear.
A cast of characters that can be confusing but this is definitely a book to be listened to again.
The frequency of French language expressions can take a little from your understanding of the text but it's not a major issue I think.

A fine body of work

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