Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

I am presently a Senior Research Fellow at the British Academy which is allowing me to complete a major research project on the Algerian War 1954 – 1962.  French rule lasted from 1830 to 1962 and, because Algeria was annexed as an integral part of France, the war was one of the most brutal examples of the decolonisation process.   The originality of this project lies in the fact that it will be the first in-depth consideration of the intensification of the war in 1956.  At this point the Socialist led Republican Front government, elected on a platform of peace in the January general election, rejected negotiations with the National Liberation Front (FLN), called up 400,000 reservists and gave the army special powers to eradicate the rebellion. Yet, the fundamental significance of this moment has been ignored with much of the new historiography focusing on the end of the war and its legacy. This project, therefore, confronts these lacunae.  By charting how the clash of ideas led to the institutionalisation of torture, the use of conscripts, and the ascendancy of the FLN, it will demonstrate how this period marked the major turning point which framed the subsequent phases of the conflict.  As such it will represent a re-conceptualisation of the war’s origins.  This project will lead to a Oxford University Press monograph (The Undeclared War) to be published in May 2009.

Qualifications

• BA (Sussex)
• PhD (Sussex)

Research Clusters

• Francophone
• Memory Cultures
• Postcolonial and Colonial Studies

Discipline Areas

• Area Studies
• Cultural Studies
• History
• International Relations
• Media Studies

Books

• 2007 Algeria - Anger of the Dispossessed, Yale University Press, London (co-authored 130,000 word monograph with John Phillips) 326pp, ISBN 978-0-300-10881-1.
• 2004 France 1815-2003, Edward Arnold, London, 224pp, ISBN 9780340761410 (co-authored with Emmanuel Godin). 
• 1997 The Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War 1954-62, Berg, Oxford. ISBN 1 85973 922 9. French translation to be published by L’Harmattan, Paris.

Edited Books

• 2004 Culture and Empire: The French Experience, Macmillan, London, 224pp, ISBN 0333791819. 
• 2002 The French Army and the Algerian War: Images, Experiences, Testimonies, Macmillan, London, 288pp, ISBN 0333774566 (with Martin Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger).
• 1997 War and Memory in the Twentieth Century, Berg, Oxford, 272pp, ISBN 1 85973 194 5 (with Ken Lunn).

Journal Articles

• 2008 ‘Opening up the battlefield: War studies and the cultural turn’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 1,1, pp47-51, ISSN 1752-6272.
• 2006 'Rethinking Memories, Monument, Histories. The Memory of World War Two since the end of the Cold War', National Identities, 8, 4, Dec, pp317-348, ISSN 1460-8944, DOI 10.1080/14608940601051943 
• 2006 ‘France 1956: The Decisive Moment’, History Today, December pp40-46.
• 2005 'The Great Fear of 1947: Could France Have Gone Communist', History Today, January, pp21-27.
• 2003 ‘Algeria: Islam and Democracy’, History Today, November, pp.7-9.
• 2001 The Outsider: Robert Paxton’, History Today, September, pp.26-28.
• 2000 'Projecting the Greater France', History Today, February, pp12-20.
• 1997 La Lutte Continue... Algeria and Contemporary History, History Today, February, pp.5-7.
• 1994 'Memories of resistance to the Algerian War: Janine Cahen, Roger Rey, Denise Barrat', Modern & Contemporary France, NS2 (2), pp.165-74.
• 1992 'Algeria: thirty years on', History Today, vol. 42, July, pp.4-6. 1991 'Left, Laïcité and Islam', Modern and Contemporary France, vol.45, April, pp.8-16.
• 1991 'French resistance and the Algerian War', History Today, vol. 41, July, pp.38-45.
• 1991 'Eyewitness accounts of the Algerian War', Modern and Contemporary France, October, vol. 47, pp.65-69.
• 1990 'French historians remembering the Algerian War', Modern and Contemporary France, vol. 41, April, pp.63-67.
• 1989 'A story of censorship and forgetting: French cinema and the Algerian War', Modern and Contemporary France, vol. 39, October, pp.61-66.

Book Chapters

• 2008 'The Second World War and the Colonial Imagination', in M. Riera and G. Schaffer, (eds), The Lasting War: Society and Identity in Britain, France and Germany after 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 9780230506718 (c-written with Tony Chafer).
• 2004 ‘French Culture and Imperialism: An Overview’, in M. Evans (ed), Culture and Empire, Macmillan, London, pp.9-32, ISBN 0333791819. 
• 2004 ‘Roderick Kedward: A Biographical Interview’, in H.Diamond and S. Kitson (eds), New Perspectives on the French Occupation, Berg, Oxford, pp 20 – 35,  ISBN 9781859737729.
• 2004 'The Harkis: Memory and Experience of France's Auxiliaries' in Alexander, Evans and Keiger (eds), The French Army and the Algerian War, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp117-133, ISBN 0333774566.  
• 1999 From colonialism to post-colonialism; the French empire since Napoleon’, in M. Alexander (ed), French History Since Napoleon, Edward Arnold, London, pp 391-415, ISBN 034 677 317.
• 1997 ‘Remembering the war with no name: French conscripts and the Algerian war 1954-62’, in M. Evans and K. Lunn (eds), War and Memory in the Twentieth Century, Berg, Oxford, pp.70-86, ISBN 1 85973 194 5.
• 1996 'The Languages of Racism in Contemporary Europe', in B. Jenkins and S. Sofos (eds), Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe, Routledge, London, pp.33-53, ISBN 0 415 12312 7.
• 1996 'Franco-Algerian relations in the New World Order', in A.D. Chafer and B. Jenkins (eds), France: from Cold War to New World Order, Macmillan, pp.219-232, ISBN 0-312-12588-7
• 1995 'Hope and betrayal; the Liberation and Algeria', in H.R. Kedward and N. Wood (eds), The Liberation of France: Image and Event, Berg, Oxford, pp.255-67, ISBN 9781859730874.
• 1992 'French army and the empire: crisis in identity', in M. Scriven and P. Wagstaff (eds), War and Society in Twentieth Century France, Berg, Oxford, pp.120-34, ISBN 9780854962921.
• 1992 'The impact of Kateb Yacine on French anti-colonialists', in N. Khader (ed), Kateb Yacine, Algiers University Press, Algiers, pp.126-35.

Other Publications

• 2006 ‘Obituary for André Mandouze’, The Guardian, 14 July, p. 24.
• 2000 'Salvation from the Third World', The Independent, 8 January, p. 8.
• 1999 'Not counter-insurgency but full-scale war', The Independent, 25 June, p. 25.
• 1999 'Sins of parents and grandparents', The Independent, 18 November, p.7.
• 1997 Boiling Under: Algeria and Europe, New Statesman, 31 May, pp 24-5.

External Funding

• 2007 British Academy funded sabbatical leave under the Senior Research Fellow Scheme for project on 1956 and the Algerian War.
• 2007 £220 from the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France for day conference on France and the Algerian War. 
• 2006 £800 British Academy overseas conference grant to attend the Georges Rudé Conference at the University of Adelaide.
• 2006 £220 from the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France for day conference on 1956, France and the Algerian War.       
• 2005 £7000 from National Lottery for series of conferences on the memory of World War Two.
• 2004 £750 from the Society for Algerian Studies for day conference on Algerians and the Algerian War.
• 2003 AHRB funded sabbatical leave under the Research Leave Scheme for project on ‘The Significance of the Past in Algerian History.’
• 1999 £250 grant from the Wiener Institute for conference on Remembering World War Two in the New Europe.
• 1999 £1,000 from British Academy for conference on Remembering World War Two in the New Europe
• 1999 £250 from Parkes Library, University of Southampton for conference on Remembering World War Two in the New Europe
• 1997 British Academy funded sabbatical leave under the Research Leave Scheme.
• 1996 £800 British Academy grant for conference on French Army and the Algerian War.
• 1996 £150 Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France grant for conference on French army and the Algerian War.
• 1994 £73,000 HEFC grant for three year project on colonialism and post-colonialism in France, looking at how the experience of empire has structured relations with the former colonies.

Consultancies

I have spoken at the House of Commons in 2002 and 2004 on contemporary Algerian politics.  I am also a member of the History Advisory Committee providing advice to the government on the teaching and research of history with the Higher Education sector.  In 2006 I was on the judging panel for the History Today book of the year award.

Invitations

• Keynote speaker at the University of Sydney for conference on war and memory, August 2006.
• Invited speaker at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon for international conference on the Algerian War, June 2006.  
• Inaugural seminar for the Centre for French History and Culture, University of St. Andrews, 23 November 2005. 
• Invited speaker at ‘Empire and Dissent’, Paris 15-16 June 2004, co-organised by the Social Science Research Council, New York, USA and the Fonds d’Analyse des Sociétés,  Paris, France.

Membership of Editorial Boards

• History Today
• Journal of War and Culture Studies

Other Information

• I have examined PhDs at the London School of Economics and University of Sussex.