A Desert Named Peace is a very impressive book. Clearly and, at times, very beautifully written, the volume brings together a staggering amount of archival and primary evidence and equally draws effectively on a mountain of secondary studies. On the subject of French involvement in Algeria, Benjamin Claude Brower comes across as exceptionally learned-a term not used too much any more, but which perhaps describes Brower best. This is sure to be a subject of interest to a wide variety of scholars. (J. P. Daughton, Stanford University, and author of An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism, and the Making of French Colonialism, 1880-1914)
In this rich and troubling story of the French conquest of Algeria, Benjamin Claude Brower takes up the question of violence, its sources, and its history. As the French pursued a project of 'pacification' in the name of civilization, they at once practiced and provoked horrific violence. Brower delves deeply into the many justifications developed for this violence. His remarkable book moves quite literally from the banalities of economic, political, and military reasoning to Romantic idealizations of the sublime (embodied especially by the Sahara desert). He offers no single causal explanation for the violence that occurred on both sides of the colonial relationship, but we leave the book with a deeper understanding of how and why it came about. (Joan W. Scott, author of The Politics of the Veil)
The conquest of the Sahara offered French enterprise no potential for profit, but it fascinated the French military and a romantic band of explorers. The story of the conquest is one of violence and brutality masked by extravagant delusion. Benjamin Claude Brower tells this story well. Brower's discussion of French policy toward slavery and the slave trade is particularly valuable. It is a tale of laws proclaimed but rarely enforced, and of compromises that left few tracks, for Saharan administrators did not wish to compromise themselves. Brower uncovers those tracks with a detective's skill. (Martin Klein, professor emeritus, University of Toronto)
A very engaging and rich study of the French conquest of the Algerian Sahara (Amal Ghazal H-Levant)
This ambitious book makes a major contribution to the study of empire. (Clifford Rosenberg H-France)
A well written revisionist look at the dark side of colonialism. (A.A. Nofi StrategyPage)
...a fascinating and well-researched book... (Matthew Lauzon H-Empire)
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