Invention of Decolonization

Todd Shepard

ISBN 10: 080147454X / ISBN 13: 9780801474545

Published by Cornell University Press, 2008

About this Item

First Edition, 2nd Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Cornell University Press, 2008. Octavo. Paperback. Book is very good with light shelf/edgewear and spine lean. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.

Seller Inventory # 458996

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Invention of Decolonization
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080147454X
• ISBN 13: 9780801474545
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

In this account of the Algerian War's effect on French political structures and notions of national identity, Todd Shepard asserts that the separation of Algeria from France was truly a revolutionary event with lasting consequences for French social and political life. For more than a century, Algeria had been legally and administratively part of France; after the bloody war that concluded in 1962, it was other—its eight million Algerian residents deprived of French citizenship while hundreds of thousands of French pieds noirs were forced to return to a country that was never home. This rupture violated the universalism that had been the essence of French republican theory since the late eighteenth century.

Shepard contends that because the amputation of Algeria from the French body politic was accomplished illegally and without explanation, its repercussions are responsible for many of the racial and religious tensions that confront France today. In portraying decolonization as an essential step in the inexorable "tide of history," the French state absolved itself of responsibility for the revolutionary change it was effecting. It thereby turned its back not only on the French of Algeria—Muslims in particular—but also on its own republican principles and the 1958 Constitution. From that point onward, debates over assimilation, identity, and citizenship—once focused on the Algerian "province/colony"—have troubled France itself. In addition to grappling with questions of race, citizenship, national identity, state institutions, and political debate, Shepard also addresses debates in Jewish history, gender history, and queer theory.

About the Author

Todd Shepard is Associate Professor of History at Temple University.