Rewriting the Troubles

In this timely and meticulously researched book, Patrick Anderson compares and contrasts Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle for independence with the republican campaign to dismantle Britain’s colonial legacy. Comparing the French and British armies, the IRA and ALN, loyalists and OAS ‘counter-terrorists’, Anderson dissects, with devastating effect, the approach of ‘constitutional’ politicians and the respective media portrayals in an analogy that for critics will be too close for comfort. About the book, historian Dr Brian Feeney, in the Irish News, said, ‘Unionists, including academics, have been aware of the striking analogies between Algeria and the north for decades: they all reject the uncanny similarities as dangerous… It’s easy to see why… Accepting any analogy or similarity means accepting that the north is illegal, a temporary arrangement, and that Britain will eventually leave Ireland as the French did Algeria.’