Le Sueur’s book focuses on the demise of support among intellectuals for Franco-Algerian reconciliation during the Algerian War. He identifies 1957 as a turning point, when evidence of French torture led even moderates to support Algerian independence. That same year, we also learn, French public opinion turned against the rebel National Liberation Front (FLN), which had mounted a terrorism campaign against rival nationalists and innocent French citizens. By the end of the war, Le Sueur argues, ideas of reconciliation had been replaced by a rigid identity politics that posited East and West as irreconcilable; the FLN also celebrated cathartic revolutionary violence as necessary for authentic national selfhood. Ultimately, intellectuals from all camps produced crude ideological representations of the struggle: brutal Islamic fanatics committed to a dangerous pan-Arabism (the right), an instance of the international socialist revolution (the left), or a rejection of European history and culture (Third Worldists). Le Sueur suggests that most French intellectuals, whatever their politics, were unable to appreciate the specificity of the Algerian nationalist movement.

This study is the product of an impressive amount of research based on official archives, private papers, personal interviews, and published sources (from the canonical to the obscure). It is organized around close readings of primary texts that demonstrate the author’s familiarity with the broader discussions of which they were a part. The reader is presented with a rich panorama of the intellectual debates occurring at this decisive historical moment. By outlining the nuances that distinguished intellectual positions, Le Sueur challenges the Manichean distinctions that became features of decolonization rhetoric on both sides of the conflict (e.g., French vs. Algerians, pro-war vs. antiwar). But the many virtues of this kind of intellectual history are partially offset by its limitations. Le Sueur is more interested in identifying “propaganda” within discrete texts than in treating them as components of broader discourses that shaped colonial politics. Given the importance he accords to Bourdieu’s writing, this emphasis on individuals and utterances rather than the doxa that they (re)produced is surprising. The narrative risks becoming an extended literature review; this textual inventory needs to be integrated more fully into the book’s broader arguments.

Le Sueur promises to explore intellectual communities, intellectual legitimacy, and identity politics. But his account is concerned with individuals rather than communities, refers sporadically to intellectual legitimacy, and does not confront identity politics directly until the final chapter. Our attention is thereby diverted from its many important insights, including the way intellectuals became combatants in a mediatized struggle over international public opinion; intellectuals’ fear that national legal and political institutions were threatened by the French military’s resort to what were seen as fascistic tactics; the tendency among French and Algerians to distinguish “true” republican France from its corrupt colonial representatives; and the implications of public debates over collective responsibility, the ethics and efficacy of revolutionary terrorism, and the contradictions implicit in French left-wing anticolonialism.

Unfortunately, Le Sueur slips into the very Manichean thinking that he derides by opposing believers in reconciliation (whom he valorizes) to extremist prophets of alterity (whom he denounces). On one side, he identifies insiders (exemplified by Camus, Feraoun, Berque, and Bourdieu) who understood local Algerian realities. These political moderates protested the war’s violence, recognized colonial identities as hybrid, and believed that some kind of future relationship between France and Algeria was viable. On the other side, he places outsiders (exemplified by Sartre and Fanon), who appropriated the Algerian struggle for dogmatic ideologies, glorified revolutionary violence, and insisted that differences between Europeans and Algerians were irreconcilable. The book even concludes with a strong, but unsupported, claim that Sartre’s and Fanon’s ideas were responsible for Algeria’s postcolonial failures and its current war. Le Sueur identifies dreams of Franco-Algerian federation during the war as paternalistic, self-serving, and unrealistic. But his study is also infused with a longing for the idea of reconciliation, whose passing he mourns.

It is certainly legitimate to criticize Sartre and Fanon for having used Algeria to promote their own agendas or to question their canonization in academic discussions of decolonization. Clearing space for the voices of others who promoted different political visions is salutary. But Le Sueur’s critique raises more questions than it resolves. What epistemological location allows him to judge Fanon an unacceptable spokesperson for the FLN, which had charged him with this mission? What, other than an essentialist conception of identity, allows Le Sueur to discount Fanon as an outsider? What version of reconciliation does the author feel merits recuperation? How would it have been historically viable? Didn’t Fanon warn us about the neocolonial alliance between bourgeois nationalists, international capitalism, and former colonial powers? How could reconciliation not have devolved into economic or political dependence during the Cold War? Didn’t the supposedly redemptive ethnographic knowledge possessed and produced by the insiders risk devolving into Orientalism?

Nevertheless, Uncivil War is a welcome installment to the new historiography of French imperialism. It will serve as a valuable resource for scholars interested in the ideological dimensions of the Algerian War as well as for readers interested in the political context that shaped postwar French intellectual currents. Le Sueur demonstrates that it is possible to write a well-documented, wide-ranging, and provocative work of 20th-century history, despite the formidable restrictions on access to official archives. In his favorable preface, Bourdieu aptly describes the book as devoted to “defenders of lost causes,” which is certainly a worthy scholarly and political enterprise.

Le Sueur’s book focuses on the demise of support among intellectuals for Franco-Algerian reconciliation during the Algerian War. He identifies 1957 as a turning point, when evidence of French torture led even moderates to support Algerian independence. That same year, we also learn, French public opinion turned against the rebel National Liberation Front (FLN), which had mounted a terrorism campaign against rival nationalists and innocent French citizens. By the end of the war, Le Sueur argues, ideas of reconciliation had been replaced by a rigid identity politics that posited East and West as irreconcilable; the FLN also celebrated cathartic revolutionary violence as necessary for authentic national selfhood. Ultimately, intellectuals from all camps produced crude ideological representations of the struggle: brutal Islamic fanatics committed to a dangerous pan-Arabism (the right), an instance of the international socialist revolution (the left), or a rejection of European history and culture (Third Worldists). Le Sueur suggests that most French intellectuals, whatever their politics, were unable to appreciate the specificity of the Algerian nationalist movement.

This study is the product of an impressive amount of research based on official archives, private papers, personal interviews, and published sources (from the canonical to the obscure). It is organized around close readings of primary texts that demonstrate the author’s familiarity with the broader discussions of which they were a part. The reader is presented with a rich panorama of the intellectual debates occurring at this decisive historical moment. By outlining the nuances that distinguished intellectual positions, Le Sueur challenges the Manichean distinctions that became features of decolonization rhetoric on both sides of the conflict (e.g., French vs. Algerians, pro-war vs. antiwar). But the many virtues of this kind of intellectual history are partially offset by its limitations. Le Sueur is more interested in identifying “propaganda” within discrete texts than in treating them as components of broader discourses that shaped colonial politics. Given the importance he accords to Bourdieu’s writing, this emphasis on individuals and utterances rather than the doxa that they (re)produced is surprising. The narrative risks becoming an extended literature review; this textual inventory needs to be integrated more fully into the book’s broader arguments.

Le Sueur promises to explore intellectual communities, intellectual legitimacy, and identity politics. But his account is concerned with individuals rather than communities, refers sporadically to intellectual legitimacy, and does not confront identity politics directly until the final chapter. Our attention is thereby diverted from its many important insights, including the way intellectuals became combatants in a mediatized struggle over international public opinion; intellectuals’ fear that national legal and political institutions were threatened by the French military’s resort to what were seen as fascistic tactics; the tendency among French and Algerians to distinguish “true” republican France from its corrupt colonial representatives; and the implications of public debates over collective responsibility, the ethics and efficacy of revolutionary terrorism, and the contradictions implicit in French left-wing anticolonialism.

Unfortunately, Le Sueur slips into the very Manichean thinking that he derides by opposing believers in reconciliation (whom he valorizes) to extremist prophets of alterity (whom he denounces). On one side, he identifies insiders (exemplified by Camus, Feraoun, Berque, and Bourdieu) who understood local Algerian realities. These political moderates protested the war’s violence, recognized colonial identities as hybrid, and believed that some kind of future relationship between France and Algeria was viable. On the other side, he places outsiders (exemplified by Sartre and Fanon), who appropriated the Algerian struggle for dogmatic ideologies, glorified revolutionary violence, and insisted that differences between Europeans and Algerians were irreconcilable. The book even concludes with a strong, but unsupported, claim that Sartre’s and Fanon’s ideas were responsible for Algeria’s postcolonial failures and its current war. Le Sueur identifies dreams of Franco-Algerian federation during the war as paternalistic, self-serving, and unrealistic. But his study is also infused with a longing for the idea of reconciliation, whose passing he mourns.

It is certainly legitimate to criticize Sartre and Fanon for having used Algeria to promote their own agendas or to question their canonization in academic discussions of decolonization. Clearing space for the voices of others who promoted different political visions is salutary. But Le Sueur’s critique raises more questions than it resolves. What epistemological location allows him to judge Fanon an unacceptable spokesperson for the FLN, which had charged him with this mission? What, other than an essentialist conception of identity, allows Le Sueur to discount Fanon as an outsider? What version of reconciliation does the author feel merits recuperation? How would it have been historically viable? Didn’t Fanon warn us about the neocolonial alliance between bourgeois nationalists, international capitalism, and former colonial powers? How could reconciliation not have devolved into economic or political dependence during the Cold War? Didn’t the supposedly redemptive ethnographic knowledge possessed and produced by the insiders risk devolving into Orientalism?

Nevertheless, Uncivil War is a welcome installment to the new historiography of French imperialism. It will serve as a valuable resource for scholars interested in the ideological dimensions of the Algerian War as well as for readers interested in the political context that shaped postwar French intellectual currents. Le Sueur demonstrates that it is possible to write a well-documented, wide-ranging, and provocative work of 20th-century history, despite the formidable restrictions on access to official archives. In his favorable preface, Bourdieu aptly describes the book as devoted to “defenders of lost causes,” which is certainly a worthy scholarly and political enterprise.

Le Sueur’s book focuses on the demise of support among intellectuals for Franco-Algerian reconciliation during the Algerian War. He identifies 1957 as a turning point, when evidence of French torture led even moderates to support Algerian independence. That same year, we also learn, French public opinion turned against the rebel National Liberation Front (FLN), which had mounted a terrorism campaign against rival nationalists and innocent French citizens. By the end of the war, Le Sueur argues, ideas of reconciliation had been replaced by a rigid identity politics that posited East and West as irreconcilable; the FLN also celebrated cathartic revolutionary violence as necessary for authentic national selfhood. Ultimately, intellectuals from all camps produced crude ideological representations of the struggle: brutal Islamic fanatics committed to a dangerous pan-Arabism (the right), an instance of the international socialist revolution (the left), or a rejection of European history and culture (Third Worldists). Le Sueur suggests that most French intellectuals, whatever their politics, were unable to appreciate the specificity of the Algerian nationalist movement.

This study is the product of an impressive amount of research based on official archives, private papers, personal interviews, and published sources (from the canonical to the obscure). It is organized around close readings of primary texts that demonstrate the author’s familiarity with the broader discussions of which they were a part. The reader is presented with a rich panorama of the intellectual debates occurring at this decisive historical moment. By outlining the nuances that distinguished intellectual positions, Le Sueur challenges the Manichean distinctions that became features of decolonization rhetoric on both sides of the conflict (e.g., French vs. Algerians, pro-war vs. antiwar). But the many virtues of this kind of intellectual history are partially offset by its limitations. Le Sueur is more interested in identifying “propaganda” within discrete texts than in treating them as components of broader discourses that shaped colonial politics. Given the importance he accords to Bourdieu’s writing, this emphasis on individuals and utterances rather than the doxa that they (re)produced is surprising. The narrative risks becoming an extended literature review; this textual inventory needs to be integrated more fully into the book’s broader arguments.

Le Sueur promises to explore intellectual communities, intellectual legitimacy, and identity politics. But his account is concerned with individuals rather than communities, refers sporadically to intellectual legitimacy, and does not confront identity politics directly until the final chapter. Our attention is thereby diverted from its many important insights, including the way intellectuals became combatants in a mediatized struggle over international public opinion; intellectuals’ fear that national legal and political institutions were threatened by the French military’s resort to what were seen as fascistic tactics; the tendency among French and Algerians to distinguish “true” republican France from its corrupt colonial representatives; and the implications of public debates over collective responsibility, the ethics and efficacy of revolutionary terrorism, and the contradictions implicit in French left-wing anticolonialism.

Unfortunately, Le Sueur slips into the very Manichean thinking that he derides by opposing believers in reconciliation (whom he valorizes) to extremist prophets of alterity (whom he denounces). On one side, he identifies insiders (exemplified by Camus, Feraoun, Berque, and Bourdieu) who understood local Algerian realities. These political moderates protested the war’s violence, recognized colonial identities as hybrid, and believed that some kind of future relationship between France and Algeria was viable. On the other side, he places outsiders (exemplified by Sartre and Fanon), who appropriated the Algerian struggle for dogmatic ideologies, glorified revolutionary violence, and insisted that differences between Europeans and Algerians were irreconcilable. The book even concludes with a strong, but unsupported, claim that Sartre’s and Fanon’s ideas were responsible for Algeria’s postcolonial failures and its current war. Le Sueur identifies dreams of Franco-Algerian federation during the war as paternalistic, self-serving, and unrealistic. But his study is also infused with a longing for the idea of reconciliation, whose passing he mourns.

It is certainly legitimate to criticize Sartre and Fanon for having used Algeria to promote their own agendas or to question their canonization in academic discussions of decolonization. Clearing space for the voices of others who promoted different political visions is salutary. But Le Sueur’s critique raises more questions than it resolves. What epistemological location allows him to judge Fanon an unacceptable spokesperson for the FLN, which had charged him with this mission? What, other than an essentialist conception of identity, allows Le Sueur to discount Fanon as an outsider? What version of reconciliation does the author feel merits recuperation? How would it have been historically viable? Didn’t Fanon warn us about the neocolonial alliance between bourgeois nationalists, international capitalism, and former colonial powers? How could reconciliation not have devolved into economic or political dependence during the Cold War? Didn’t the supposedly redemptive ethnographic knowledge possessed and produced by the insiders risk devolving into Orientalism?

Nevertheless, Uncivil War is a welcome installment to the new historiography of French imperialism. It will serve as a valuable resource for scholars interested in the ideological dimensions of the Algerian War as well as for readers interested in the political context that shaped postwar French intellectual currents. Le Sueur demonstrates that it is possible to write a well-documented, wide-ranging, and provocative work of 20th-century history, despite the formidable restrictions on access to official archives. In his favorable preface, Bourdieu aptly describes the book as devoted to “defenders of lost causes,” which is certainly a worthy scholarly and political enterprise.