Hey guys, since the teaching of Algerian history pre 1830 is really shallow in Algerian school I would like to know if you could recommand a book about the subject, ideally the book would go as far back as possible (even before classical antiquity if possible), address the dynamics between the indigenous Amazigh and their conquerors and would talk about the "birth" of Berbers (Imazighen) as an ethnic group because the diversity of phenotypes in Algeria and the Maghreb is really astonishing even though the majority are mediterranean type looking an important part of Amazigh are pale or ginger or blond (Kabyles) or black (Tuareg).
I've seen "Histoire de l'Algérie: Des origines à nos jours" by Pierre Montagnon and "Historical Dictionary of the Bergers (Imazighen) (Historical Dictionaries of Peoples and Cultures)" by Hsain Ilahiane being reccomanded, what's your take on them ?
I speak Arabic, French and English so a book in any of these three language would be great!
Cheers!
Pierre Montagnon isn't an historian and beyond his personal history during Algerian War (having supported the coup), I think the big problem in the book is that he right from the starts argues the inexistence of an Algerian nation before the French conquest, as "not one dynasty" managed to gather the local populations. It's rather more a post-colonialist stance, but Algeria isn't specifically more artificial than Morroco or Tunisia in the XIXth, as in being a country indeed framed by colonial conquest and takeover, but where existed particularities (political and geographical) that influed on these colonial limits (the more obvious being the Regency).
While it's less a problem for the XXth, Montagnon knowing his military history, it's still is an issue as he tends to see the conflicts in proto and post-independent Algeria trough the lens of a quick national build-up thanks to the French period.For previous periods, Montagnon is way beyond what was made since the 60's.
I'd rather advise you Gilbert Meynier's books, especially L’Algérie des origines : de la préhistoire à l’avènement de l’Islam and L'Algérie, cœur du Maghreb classique : de l'ouverture islamo-arabe au repli (698-1518).
It's an oldie, and it should be double-checked on the ancient and medieval history of Berbers, but L'histoire du Maghreb : un essai de synthèse is representative of a change of perspective in Maghrib's historiography in the second half of XXth, that you can spot too in the UNECSO's History of Africa (you *really* have to double check some articles, and some are bad, but overall the ones focusing on Berbers are good)
If you're particularily interested on the relations between Mauri and Romans, Vandals and Byzantines, I'll really advise you Les Maures et l’Afrique romaine (IVe-VIIe siècle) (legally and freely avaible there) by Yves Modéran. The book is challenging if you don't have some broad understanding of North African period and Berbers, but it is quite rewardin too.