Description
Book SynopsisGenerously illustrated with examples of this imperialist iconography, Sessions's work connects a wide-ranging culture of empire to specific policies of colonization during a pivotal period in the genesis of modern...
Trade ReviewJennifer E. Sessions argues that the contested political culture of the post-revolutionary period was at the origins of French Algeria. The dualism that structures the book's title, By Sword and Plow, frames an alternative narrative of nineteenth-century French history. Sessions presents the conquest and settlement of Algeria as one of the nineteenth century’s major events, one in which issues of sovereignty, citizenship, and political power were played out. This book will be read with fascination by readers with widely different interests.
* Journal of Modern History *
Sessions offers up a fine and illuminating study of the early years of Algérie française and makes an important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century political culture.... By Sword and Plow is an impressive, highly readable, and meticulously-researched piece of scholarship that deserves the attention of all historians of France overseas and France in the first half of the nineteenth century.... It shows French imperialism in a new and (sometimes radically) different light.
-- John Strachan * H-France Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Cultural Origins of French AlgeriaPart I: By the Sword
1. A Tale of Two Despots: The Invasion of Algeria and the Revolution of 1830
2. Empire of Merit: The July Monarchy and the Algerian War
3. The Blood of Brothers: Bonapartism and the Popular Culture of ConquestPart II. By the Plow
4. The Empire of Virtue: Colonialism in the Age of Abolition
5. Selling Algeria: Speculation and the Colonial Landscape
6. Settling Algeria: Labor, Emigration, and CitizenshipConclusion: Politics and Empire in Nineteenth-Century FranceSelected Bibliography of Primary Sources
Index
