Law, Order, and Empire: Policing and Crime in Colonial Algeria, 1870-1954

Law, Order, and Empire: Policing and Crime in Colonial Algeria, 1870-1954

by Samuel Kalman
Law, Order, and Empire: Policing and Crime in Colonial Algeria, 1870-1954

Law, Order, and Empire: Policing and Crime in Colonial Algeria, 1870-1954

by Samuel Kalman

Hardcover

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Overview

While much attention has focused on society, culture, and the military during the Algerian War of Independence, Law, Order, and Empire addresses a vital component of the empire that has been overlooked: policing. Samuel Kalman examines a critical component of the construction and maintenance of a racial state by settlers in Algeria from 1870 onward, in which Arabs and Berbers were subjected to an ongoing campaign of symbolic, structural, and physical violence. The French administration encouraged this construct by expropriating resources and territory, exploiting cheap labor, and monopolizing government, all through the use of force.

Kalman provides a comprehensive overview of policing and crime in French Algeria, including the organizational challenges encountered by officers. Unlike the metropolitan variant, imperial policing was never a simple matter of law enforcement but instead engaged in the defense of racial hegemony and empire. Officers and gendarmes waged a constant struggle against escalating banditry, the assault and murder of settlers, and nationalist politics—anticolonial violence that rejected French rule. Thus, policing became synonymous with repression, and its brutal tactics foreshadowed the torture and murder used during the War of Independence. To understand the mechanics of empire, Kalman argues that it was the first line of defense for imperial hegemony.

Law, Order, and Empire outlines not only how failings in policing were responsible for decolonization in Algeria but also how torture, massacres, and quotidian colonial violence—introduced from the very beginning of French policing in Algeria—created state-directed aggression from 1870 onward.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781501774041
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 03/15/2024
Pages: 276
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Samuel Kalman is Professor of History at St. Francis Xavier University. He is the author of French Colonial Fascism and The Extreme Right in Interwar France.

What People are Saying About This

Sylvie Thénault

Kalman approaches colonial policing in Algeria in a new way, connecting existing scholarship on colonial law enforcement and the machinations of Gallic colonialism. Law, Order, and Empire deserves to be known and read widely.

Claire Eldridge

Law, Order, and Empire provides important historical context to current global debates regarding the excessive use of force by police and the racialized nature of policing. Samuel Kalman has unearthed a wealth of rich historical material and stitched together a compelling narrative revealing deep, and deeply colonial, roots of policing.

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