A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era

by Matthew Connelly

Algeria sits at the crossroads of the Atlantic, European, Arab, and African worlds. Yet, unlike the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Algeria's fight for independence has rarely been viewed as an international conflict. Even forty years later, it is remembered as the scene of a national drama that culminated with Charles de Gaulle's decision to "grant" Algerians their independence despite assassination attempts, mutinies, and settler insurrection.

Yet, as Matthew Connelly demonstrates, the war the Algerians fought occupied a world stage, one in which the U.S. and the USSR, Israel and Egypt, Great Britain, Germany, and China all played key roles. Recognizing the futility of confronting France in a purely military struggle, the Front de Libération Nationale instead sought to exploit the Cold War competition and regional rivalries, the spread of mass communications and emigrant communities, and the proliferation of international and non-governmental organizations. By harnessing the forces of nascent globalization they divided France internally and isolated it from the world community. And, by winning rights and recognition as Algeria's legitimate rulers without actually liberating the national territory, they rewrote the rules of international relations.

Based on research spanning three continents and including, for the first time, the rebels' own archives, this study offers a landmark reevaluation of one of the great anti-colonial struggles as well as a model of the new international history. It will appeal to historians of post-colonial studies, twentieth-century diplomacy, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

A Diplomatic Revolution was winner of the 2003 Stuart L. Bernath Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Akira Iriye International History Book Award, The Foundation for Pacific Quest.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Algeria, Africa, World History, Politics

427 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jenti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I meannnn...
A book abt history of decolonization. Detailed, informative and interesting 😄
Hope i will get better at describing historical books:/

[DoctorM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good account of the diplomatic maneuvering behind the Algerian War. Connelly discusses how the major powers-- both the US and the USSR ---tried to balance Cold War aims with currying favour in the Arab world and how both the French and the Algerian rebels tried to play for support. Connelly very correctly notes that while the Algerian FLN was clearly defeated in the Battle of Algiers in 1957 and severely wounded by the French border fence campaign of 1958, the handful of active surviving fighters had the advantage of a political leadership that was deft enough to play on US fears of Soviet influence in the Arab world and on French fears of a swelling Arab population and Arab immigration should Algeria stay French. It's interesting to read US and French and British diplomatic exchanges that mirror the fears--- immigration, jihad, secularism ---that would return fifty years later.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book's crowning achievement is its demonstration that the Algerian War was a critical medium that reflected the emergence of a transnational international system and the ensuing contest over what shape and form this system should take; its greatest failing is not demonstrating why the War was the *most* important front in that contest. Perhaps the latter was not Connelly's objective.

Overall, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the most urgent question of our (and perhaps, of all) time: how can people of various cultures and beliefs peacefully negotiate their differences and find a place in a world that is at once integrating yet also threatening to erode the very traits that buttress each community's claim to uniqueness and legitimacy? The book does not pretend to hold the answer, but it does provide the reader with the historical tools indispensable to dissecting the events of the contemporary world.

[Nina😽😽 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kursbok. Han tycks inte veta hur man skriver en intressant bok.

[Benemint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very rich diplomatic history with huuuge theme.