Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
9-2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
History
Advisor
Richard Wolin
Committee Members
David Troyansky
Gary Wilder
Camille Robcis
David Schalk
Subject Categories
African History | Continental Philosophy | Ethics and Political Philosophy | European History | Intellectual History | Islamic World and Near East History | Other French and Francophone Language and Literature | Political History
Keywords
Francophone Maghreb, Historical Theory, Decolonization, French Historiography, North African Historiography
Abstract
This dissertation examines the use of the French Revolution as an explanatory device for discussing the French-Algerian War (1954-1962). Anticolonial intellectuals in France invoked the French Revolution to explain their reasons for supporting colonial reform as well as their solidarity with Algerian nationalist aims. Through an examination of intellectuals’ public interventions alongside French and Algerian historical narratives, I examine the ways in which historical alignment signaled political and cultural distance between France and Algeria. Making an independent Algeria analogous to eighteenth-century revolutionary France lent political and conceptual legitimacy to Algerian claims to an independent national identity while also reinforcing the basic tenets of France’s colonial claims to historical and cultural universalism.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Timothy Scott, "The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason" (2016). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1424
Included in
African History Commons, Continental Philosophy Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, European History Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Other French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Political History Commons