DICTIONARY OF THE ALGERIAN WAR

Sixty years after the Évian Accords, the first dictionary devoted to the Algerian War is published, written by the leading specialists of the period, both Algerian and French.

Sixty years after the end of the Algerian War, the issues of memory tied to the history of this conflict have fuelled as many debates as controversies. Historical research has continued to advance throughout this period. 

Yet there was still a lack of a work of sufficient scope to address the subject from every angle — within a context that has remained highly charged — drawing on a now abundant bibliography and building on the findings of research, with the commitment to objectivity and intellectual rigour that alone can advance our knowledge. This is that work. The fruit of a long endeavour that manages to encompass, without taboo, the full range of military, political, sociological and intellectual themes and data linked to the last episode of the colonial period. 

One of the merits of its editors — Sylvie Thénault, Ouanassa Siari Tengour and Tramor Quemeneur — is that they succeeded in gathering around them historians and researchers from diverse backgrounds, with varied and sometimes opposing convictions. Where myths still too often prevail over historical truth, this plurality of approaches was not only necessary but indispensable to the credibility of such an undertaking. 

A major publishing event, this Dictionary, with its exceptional ambition and richness, will meet the legitimate expectations of all those who, on both shores of the Mediterranean, seek only to better understand the complex history of this war.