Description
“Suppose that the Emperor of China, landing in France at the head of an armed power, should make himself master of our largest cities and of our capital. That after having burned all the public registers before suffering to read them, and having destroyed or dispersed all of the civil service without inquiring into their various attributions, he should finally seize every functionary from the head of the government to the campesino guards, the peers, the deputies, and in general the whole ruling class and deport them all at once to some distant country . . .”
As a member of the French Parliament, Alexis Tocqueville took it upon himself to become France’s foremost expert on the Algerian question. To this end, he studied the history and people of Algeria, visited the country several times, and undertook a study of both the Islamic religion and Arab language.
Although extremely critical of the invasion of Algeria, Tocqueville was equally critical of squandering France’s new colonial opportunity, and advocates for a program of domination and colonization, or simultaneous warfare against the native population while also pursuing limited colonization in key cities and regions. In a series of letters and reports to the French Establishment, Tocqueville describes a sort of conceptual travelogue, describing first a brief outline the of the country, it’s inhabitants, their histories, and then describing more explicitly how France should go about improving her war effort and solidifying her domination of Algeria.
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