Paris 1961 : Algerians, state terror, and memory /

House (Univ. of Leeds, UK) and MacMaster (Univ. of East Anglia, UK) focus on the events of October 17, 1961, in Paris as a departure point to dissect memories of the Algerian war of independence and to shed light on a dark episode of France's colonial and national past. The authors estimate over 100 peaceful demonstrators were killed, but emphasize the evidentiary problems caused in part by appropriations of the tragedy by various French groups to this day. The complexity of the picture and the limited common knowledge about it required that the authors split the book into two parts, the first describing and analyzing factors that led to the conflagration, the second seeking to extract how the event was deleted from memory until the 1980s. In so doing, they consider matters of intergenerational memory and its place in the still limited field of studies of the Algerian war. There is excellent detective work involving archival, oral, and cultural investigations. The complex nature of the event and its relationship to French society make this a challenging, albeit well written book, best suited for those with prior knowledge of French history. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, researchers/faculty collections. G. P. de Syon Albright College