France, the United States, and the Algerian War - Hardcover

by Irwin M. Wall (Author)

In this pioneering book, Irwin M. Wall unravels the intertwining threads of the protracted agony of France's war with Algeria, the American role in the fall of the Fourth Republic, the long shadow of Charles de Gaulle, and the decisive postwar power of the United States. At the heart of this study is an incisive analysis of how Washington helped bring de Gaulle to power and a penetrating revisionist account of his Algerian policy. Departing from widely held interpretations of the Algerian War, Wall approaches the conflict as an international diplomatic crisis whose outcome was primarily dependent on French relations with Washington, the NATO alliance, and the United Nations, rather than on military engagement.

Wall makes extensive use of previously unexamined documents from the Department of State, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and heretofore secret files of the Archives of the French Army at Vincennes and the Colonial Ministry at Aix-en-Provence. He argues convincingly that de Gaulle always intended to keep Algeria French, in line with his goal to make France the center of a reorganized French union of autonomous but depen- dent African states and the heart of a Europe of cooperating states. Such a union, which the French called Eurafrica, would further France's chance to be an equal partner with Britain and the United States in a reordered "Free World."

In recent years the Algerian War has reclaimed its place in popular memory in France. Its interpreters have continued to view the conflict as a national, internal drama and de Gaulle as the second-time savior who ended French participation in a ruinous colonial war. But by analyzing the conflict in terms of French foreign policy, Wall shows the pivotal role of the United States and counters certain political myths that portray de Gaulle as an emancipator of colonial peoples. Wall's interpretation of the Algerian conflict may well spark controversy and will open important new avenues of debate concerning postwar international affairs.

Front Jacket

This is a fascinating and provocative work, based on amazingly thorough archival research that includes extensive use of previously classified materials. The narrative carries us through the long agony of the Algerian War and offers a keen and judicious analysis of the major parties involved, as well as of the immensely complex diplomatic negotations and of Charles de Gaulle's role in the resolution of the crisis.--David Schalk, author of War and the Ivory Tower: Algeria and Vietnam

Author Biography

Irwin M. Wall is Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside, and author of The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954, which won the Chinard Prize in 1992.