Algiers, Third World Capital: Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers by Elaine Mokhtefi

BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 497 In the final part, the book surveys the aftermath of the 1942 landing. The dissolution of the de Gaulle-Giraud "dyarchy" opened the way for the governance of North Africa by the Free French. By 1944, nearly 233 000 Maghrebis were incorporated in the French armies and taken to combat zones in Italy and France. The belief was widespread among Moroccans, Algerians and Tunisians that such an effort called for recognition in the form of greater political, social and economic rights. Nationalism was on the rise in North Africa and demands for independence articulated more clearly than ever, but progress was hindered by French officialdom's reluctance to make concessions or part with advantages as it concentrated on recovery from the war, by colon opposition to diminution of privilege and by dissimilar conditions in the three countries. The book ends with the tragic events at Sétif in Algeria on 8 May 1945 and the questions and controversies surrounding them. Metzger's contribution has much to recommend it. Her reconsideration of a critical segment of French-North African relations comes as a welcome reminder of the importance of the wartime period, a harbinger of the decolonisation phase that followed. It combines scholarship and a capacity to transform it into clear and well-crafted prose. SAMIR SAUL Université de Montréal ELAINE MOKHTEFI, ALGIERS, THIRD WORLD CAPITAL: FREEDOM FIGHTERS, REVOLUTIONARIES, BLACK PANTHERS, NEW YORK, VERSO PRESS, 2018, 242 PAGES This book weaves together the histories of a time of dramatic change in Algeria and in the United States, when Algeria gained its independence from France, and when the United States came to terms with its failure in the Vietnam war, and with the need to assure African Americans that they had equal rights as citizens. This is an autobiographical work by a woman who experienced these changes first hand, living in Algeria from just after it won independence in 1962 until 1974. The book has won a wide audience thanks to dealing with themes of great interest to those who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. It has also been translated into French and published by Éditions La Fabrique, with the title Alger, capitale de la révolution, de Fanon aux Black Panthers. This version was also published by Éditions Barzakh, an independent publisher in Algiers. The period from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s was a time when the United States and France went through very different experiences in dealing with issues of ethnic, political and religious diversity. The United States saw a large- 498 BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS scale movement of different groups into its urban areas, both African Americans from the southern states and foreigners, especially from southern and eastern Europe. France had seen an influx of colonial subjects, especially from North and West Africa, who came for work or military service. While the new arrivals in America’s cities came mainly as families, those who came to France were mainly young men who might return home with money, or remain in France having married a French woman. The book’s author, Elaine Klein (later Mokhtefi), was born in 1928 to an American Jewish family. Spending much of her childhood in rural Connecticut she felt out of place, as schoolmates mocked her as the “little Jewish girl.” She also spent time in some southern states where she saw how African Americans were treated as inferiors, and she saw how even in the north they were poorly treated. As she reached her early 20s (in the early 1950s), the United States was entering a difficult time as some of its citizens developed an extreme fear of communism, which many associated with newly arrived immigrants. Ethel and Julius Rosenburg, an American Jewish couple who had been members of the Young Communist League, were put on trial in 1951 for having served as spies for the Soviet Union, providing them with information that helped the Soviets build an atomic bomb—which they successfully tested in 1949. They were sentenced to death for espionage in March 1951, but there were widespread protests against the validity of the charges. They were finally executed in June...

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