Anglo-Saxon Literary and Filmic Representations of the French Army in Algeria

Abstract

The point of departure for the present chapter is the desire to plug a perceived gap in the critical analysis of the processes of individual and collective memory as they relate to the history of the Algerian War, 1954–62. For if much has been written about the impact of the war, and especially its psychological legacy, on the societies of the principal protagonists, France and Algeria, then very little has been said about its impact on the wider world.1 This is doubly ironic in that the Algerian revolution, precisely as an example of decolonization, was by definition part of a global phenomenon, namely the European retreat from overseas empire in the postwar period, and was, moreover, a conflict in which the very processes of internationalization constituted a strategic consideration of central importance.