Natalya Vince – författare

Winner of the 2016 Women's History Network Book PrizeBetween 1954 and 1962, Algerian women played a major role in the struggle to end French rule in one of the twentieth century's most violent wars of decolonisation. This is the first in-depth exploration of what happened to these women after independence in 1962. Based on new oral history interviews with women who participated in the war in a wide range of roles, from urban bombers to members of the rural guerrilla support network, it explores how female veterans viewed the post-independence state and its multiple discourses on 'the Algerian woman' in the fifty years following 1962. It also examines how these former combatants' memories of the anti-colonial conflict intertwine with, contradict or coexist alongside the state-sponsored narrative of the war constructed after independence. Making an original contribution to debates about gender, nationalism and memory, this book will appeal to students and scholars of history and politics.

This book provides a new analysis of the contested history of one of the most violent wars of decolonisation of the twentieth century – the Algerian War/ the Algerian Revolution between 1954 and 1962. It brings together an engaging account of its origins, course and legacies with an incisive examination of how interpretations of the conflict have shifted and why it continues to provoke intense debate. Locating the war in a century-long timeframe stretching from 1914 to the present, it multiplies the perspectives from which events can be seen. The pronouncements of politicians are explored alongside the testimony of rural women who provided logistical support for guerrillas in the National Liberation Front. The broader context of decolonisation and the Cold War is considered alongside the experiences of colonised men serving in the French army. Unpacking the historiography of the end of a colonial empire, the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and their post-colonial aftermaths, it provides an accessible insight into how history is written.

This book provides a new analysis of the contested history of one of the most violent wars of decolonisation of the twentieth century – the Algerian War/ the Algerian Revolution between 1954 and 1962. It brings together an engaging account of its origins, course and legacies with an incisive examination of how interpretations of the conflict have shifted and why it continues to provoke intense debate. Locating the war in a century-long timeframe stretching from 1914 to the present, it multiplies the perspectives from which events can be seen. The pronouncements of politicians are explored alongside the testimony of rural women who provided logistical support for guerrillas in the National Liberation Front. The broader context of decolonisation and the Cold War is considered alongside the experiences of colonised men serving in the French army. Unpacking the historiography of the end of a colonial empire, the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and their post-colonial aftermaths, it provides an accessible insight into how history is written.    

This multidisciplinary edited volume examines wide-ranging exchanges between France and its Mediterranean neighbours and their impact. It questions the changing notion of a Mediterranean space and its representation, centrality and relevance in terms of France’s international relations under Sarkozy’s presidency, from the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean and its complex articulations with the European Union’s own agenda in the region, to the tortuous relations with Libya, made even more complicated by the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’. Beyond the realm of state relations and formal policy networks, the volume examines the crucial role played by diasporas, the interplay between postcolonial and transnational representations in the fields of cultural diplomacy, cinema and architecture, and considers how these can produce merged or hybrid identities. Later in the collection, the politics of ethnicity in post-war France, the interplay between negative perceptions of Islam and the changing memory of the Algerian War, and the evolution of Franco-Algerian relations since 1962 are used to question the weight of the colonial past when analysing the relations between France and North Africa.