Tunisie, deuxième république: chronique d’une Constituante, 2011–2014

Abstract

operations (253–254). The final chapter analyzes a different form of territorial organisation: plans for a partition of the country along ethnic lines. Comparisons with Israel and Lebanon proliferated as French politicians sought a solution that would avoid granting territorial integrity to the Algerian state. Moreover, Henni argues that the post-1962 policy of coopération also fell short of granting the Algerians full independence. Instead, she views the policy as a form of blackmail and a continuation of the colonial relationship. As Rocher Noir became a French military base within independent Algeria, and nuclear testing sites as well as concessions for oil were granted to the French, coopération undoubtedly extended a number of colonial privileges. Yet an interrogation of whether neo-colonialism was, in fact, a simple extension of previous relationship, or whether it involved a fundamentally new calculation due to national sovereignty – despite the existence of a historicallyrooted dependencies – is a subject that is ripe for discussion. Few reading this work would likely disagree with Henni’s opening claim that ‘colonialism is not a positive force’ (7). The novelty of the book, however, lies in the author’s narrative of how technocrats, architects, and colonial officials envisioned the relationship between war and space, even if Henni is occasionally tempted to collapse these nuances in an account of the ‘colonial mind’. This book is a major development in the field, and the reading of architectural plans as a colonial archive makes the work especially innovative. This research will be required readings for historians of the Algerian War, as well as those interested in the link between politics, colonialism, and architecture. The work leaves no doubt that construction and the management of space were an ‘inherent part of France’s colonial violence in Algeria’ (286). Anyone who seeks to understand the transformative nature of decolonisation for both France and Algeria will find Henni’s work to be required reading.