Short Algeria Reading List

Here’s a PDF of the list of books your blogger usually gives to people when they email and ask for books about Algeria. This list only includes books and articles in English or translated into English (except for Camile Tawil’s book on the civil war which is worth seeking out if readers know a bit of Arabic); It is a quick thing for easy use by English speakers. The list also has some recent additions which are quite delicious. The division is somewhat arbitrary but readers can manage. It’s rather short, too. A longer, more academic bibliography (with more articles and papers and including things in French and Arabic and so on) would be worth the effort at some point. An update will be forthcoming. A list on Mauritania is presently in the works. The list is also on the TMND Scribd. Of course suggestions/recommendations for additions are welcome and encouraged.

N.B.: Refer to the Scribd page for the most up to date version of the list, not the PDF file linked in this post as the Scribd page is updated with far greater ease.

A friend once emailed asking for recent books on Kabylia. Do readers have suggestions?

Things written recently

Some superficial thoughts about goings on in the region in general based on some recent reports and articles.

This week’s issue of The Economist has two interesting articles: one on the Sahel countries (minus Mauritania and mostly interested in Tuaregs) and the aftermath of recent events in Libya and another optimistic piece on Libya’s relations with the NTC’s wartime allies (Qatar, it reports is the ‘worst offender’ in meddling in the country’s internal politics; many Tunisians angry about an-Nahdah say the same).

The big picture on Chad is also interesting: ICG put out a good report on Chad a few weeks ago, ‘Africa without Qaddafi: The Case of Chad‘. This is especially worth reading after looking at ICG’s March 2010 report on Libyan-Chad relations (‘Beyond Political Influence‘).

Khoury: ‘Winter or Spring for Syrian Christians?’

Doreen Khoury of Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Beirut has an interesting article titled ‘Is it Winter or Spring for Christians in Syria?’ It provides an interesting of institutions and political views and responses to Arab uprisings among Levantine Christians and in light of the Maspero atrocity. It manages to avoid the sectarian and communalist overtones of much of the western and politically vested commentary on the issue and is worth considering.

The abstract:

In recent months, there has been much debate on the future of minority Christians sects in the Arab world followingthe popular uprisings. The Maspero tragedy in Egypt, during which Coptic Christians were attacked and killed by thearmy, and the resurgence of Islamic parties in the region has led many Christians, especially in Syria and Lebanon,to question whether they will survive the Arab Spring. Many have also questioned the wisdom of regime change inSyria, arguing that the downfall of the Assad regime, long perceived as a protector of minorities, threatens the existence of Christians. But the question is to what extent is the Arab world hostile to Christians? And how wise is it forthem to support the Assad regime?

Read the whole thing here. What do readers think?