Scott McLemee: The relevance of books ripped from the headlines of 50 years ago
“Sixty Minutes” reported a couple of weeks ago that George W. Bush is now, on the advice of Henry Kissinger, reading a book about the Algerian War.
My new year’s resolutions preclude taking any of the various cheap shots made conveniently easy by this bit of news. No, mustn’t. Instead, it’s worth dwelling on an interesting fact there, between the lines. Even someone with a pretty slight knowledge of the literature on the Algerian conflict (okay, I confess it) will immediately know which book Kissinger recommended to the president. It’s obvious.
First published 30 years ago, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne, very quickly established itself as the standard account of that period available in any language.
The author had been a member of the British military in the 1940s and a foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in the early 1950s, before going on to write a three-volume history of warfare between France and Germany. He must know how to talk to people: Savage War reflects an extraordinary degree of access to participants in both the Algerian guerilla movement and the French occupying forces. Certainly no French historian had written anything comparable in scope or balance. Perhaps none could — the passions of the conflict itself having been followed by years of public amnesia.
When Horne’s book first appeared, it seemed to be an account of one major, but now largely closed, chapter in the history of postwar decolonization. Subsequent developments — in Algeria and elsewhere — have made the past prologue. Savage War has become a de facto textbook for American military officers facing time in Iraq. Doubtless it has close students on the other side, as well.
In recent years, used copies of the book have fetched at least $100 apiece online. Fortunately a paperback reprint has recently been issued by New York Review Books (the publishing house associated with the journal).
In a preface to the new edition, Horne notes that the Israeli press once mentioned that Ariel Sharon’s favorite bedside book was a Hebrew translation of Savage War. He then quotes, with approval, a comment by Amos Elon, an eminent Israeli journalist and social critic. Sharon “must have tragically misunderstood it,” wrote Elon. “That book could not tell him what to do, but it could have told him what not to do.”
Horne goes on to spell out what George Bush and Tony Blair might have learned from a careful study of Algeria. His point is much the same as the one made by Elon. “At the very least,” he says, “its lessons might have imposed caution before getting involved in Iraq in the first place.”...
Read entire article at Inside Higher Ed
My new year’s resolutions preclude taking any of the various cheap shots made conveniently easy by this bit of news. No, mustn’t. Instead, it’s worth dwelling on an interesting fact there, between the lines. Even someone with a pretty slight knowledge of the literature on the Algerian conflict (okay, I confess it) will immediately know which book Kissinger recommended to the president. It’s obvious.
First published 30 years ago, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne, very quickly established itself as the standard account of that period available in any language.
The author had been a member of the British military in the 1940s and a foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in the early 1950s, before going on to write a three-volume history of warfare between France and Germany. He must know how to talk to people: Savage War reflects an extraordinary degree of access to participants in both the Algerian guerilla movement and the French occupying forces. Certainly no French historian had written anything comparable in scope or balance. Perhaps none could — the passions of the conflict itself having been followed by years of public amnesia.
When Horne’s book first appeared, it seemed to be an account of one major, but now largely closed, chapter in the history of postwar decolonization. Subsequent developments — in Algeria and elsewhere — have made the past prologue. Savage War has become a de facto textbook for American military officers facing time in Iraq. Doubtless it has close students on the other side, as well.
In recent years, used copies of the book have fetched at least $100 apiece online. Fortunately a paperback reprint has recently been issued by New York Review Books (the publishing house associated with the journal).
In a preface to the new edition, Horne notes that the Israeli press once mentioned that Ariel Sharon’s favorite bedside book was a Hebrew translation of Savage War. He then quotes, with approval, a comment by Amos Elon, an eminent Israeli journalist and social critic. Sharon “must have tragically misunderstood it,” wrote Elon. “That book could not tell him what to do, but it could have told him what not to do.”
Horne goes on to spell out what George Bush and Tony Blair might have learned from a careful study of Algeria. His point is much the same as the one made by Elon. “At the very least,” he says, “its lessons might have imposed caution before getting involved in Iraq in the first place.”...