Politiques coloniales au Maghreb by Charles-Robert Ageron

Review by: Richard M. Brace

The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Feb., 1974), pp. 208-209
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208 Reviews of Books
ity must be routinized, anQ that whether this
will happen depends on the villagers consider-
ing the new regime's party workers and govern-
ment officials competent and dedicated to the
solution of rural problems.
Mayfield traces the history of the Egyptian
fellahin since the early nineteenth century. He
notes the gradual growth of large landlordism
and of peasant rebellion. He says that the inde-
pendence granted in 1922 resulted in landlord
rule and that peasant living standards deterio-
rated in the
1930s
and 1940S. In 1951 there
were fellah risings on several large estates, to
get land. The Muslim Brotherhood and reli-
gious ideology moved the peasants more than
Communists did.
In discussing peasant personality and cul-
ture, Mayfield stresses the values of obedience,
fatalism, hierarclhy, and individualism. The
government has theoretically introduced vil-
lage councils, but these are functioning in only
about one-fourth of the villages, while the rest
function under traditional mayors, or umdahs.
The fellahs distinguish sharply between Nasser
and his bureaucracy-if he knew, the bad
things wouldn't happen. The Arab Socialist
Union is active in the villages, but, according
to Mayfield, "Many villagers see the ASU as a
mutual protection society that provides a
means for mainitaining one's position in the vil-
lage or town." The ASU executive committees
are usually dominated by traditional landown-
ing families or government employees who
have no interest in the problems of villagers.
Government efforts include brief youth
training camps, the development of combined
units of several villages with common health
and social facilities (which Mayfield finds inef-
fective), and village councils. Mayfield divides
the latter into reactionary councils (perhiaps
forty per cent of the total), passive councils
(perhaps thirty per cent), and revolutionary
aincl progressive councils.
Mayfield tells of a successful experiment
with rural banks, in which trainees were rigor-
ously picked and then trained for six months.
To gain the confidence of the villagers, the
trainees started by talking to them regarding
their problems. The author concludes by not-
ing the inadequacy of government efforts, and
he states that the new structures have failed to
generate loyalty. In many new institutions, tra-
ditional norms are being strengthened. None-
theless, Mayfield feels, a significant start has
been made.
The book is an excellent presentation of the
myriad problems that still exist in Egypt's vil-
lages and of the inadequacy of the govern-
ment's attempt to break with tradition and
meet those problems. Given the even more con-
servative approach of Sadat, it is to be doubted
that Egypt's many rural problems and the
strong remnants of a landlord-dominated rural
society will be overcome by the present regime.
NIKKI R. KEDDIE
University of California,
Los A ngeles
AFRICA
CHARLES-ROBERT AGERON. Politiques coloniales au
Maghreb. ("Collection Hier.") Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France. 1972. Pp. 291.
This volume combines under one cover articles
published earlier in French periodicals, to-
gether with unpublished essays. The research is
original and is written in a smooth, exciting
style. Charles-Robert Ageron, whose two-vol-
ume Les Alge'riens musulmans et la France
(1871-19I9) (1968), and Histoire de I'Algerie
contemporaine (I830-I870) (1970), attracted a
strongly favorable reaction from the scholarly
community, strengthens his reputation with
this book. One might place him as a leader in
the generation of French historians who follow
Le Tourneau, Julien, and Berque.
Nine strong chapters examine four themes:
"The Origins of French Algeria," "French
Colonial Myths and Policy," "French Socialists
and Communists and the Algerian Question,"
and "Algerian Algeria." Each chapter rests
upon a careful investigation of the facts, which
are then woven into an intelligent and fair-
minded account. On touchy questions, such as
whiether French General Bugeaud double dealt
Abdel Kadir in the Treaty of Tafna (May 30,
1837), Ageron probes the negotiations, the two
texts (French and Arabic), and the later pos-
ture of the two parties. He leaves the original
question to the reader's judgment. This reader
judges that the phrase "et au-dela," which ap-
peared in the French text but was absent from
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Africa 209
the Arabic, was an intentional ploy to justify
future French expansion.
The long discussion of the political evolu-
tion of Algeria under the Second Empire is
broken into nine parts, amounting to some for-
ty-five pages, and is extremely informative. It
exposes Napoleon III's lack of will to impose
his more flexible personal policy in Algeria.
Only one section of the book moves outside Al-
geria to examine Frenchi ideology and action
among the Berbers of Morocco. It lays to rest
the old "myth" that the Berbers are the world's
most resistant and wonderful people.
Part 3 adds considerably to our knowledge of
the French Left's posture toward Algeria, even
though it is restricted to the detailed study of
two short periods, 1895-1914 and 1921-24. In-
quiring readers, while satisfied with this frag-
ment, will certainly be interested in seeing the
subject updated. Possibly Professor Ageron
would consider devoting another book to this
theme. A particularly appealing section of part
4, "Algerian Algeria," studies the economic po-
sition of the Muslim peasantry living in the
Constantine area (1920-35). It proves that they
took a much worse beating in every way than
their French counterparts. A final forty-page
section examines the career of Abdel Kadir's
grandson, the Emir Khaled. Two questions
provide the structure: Was Emir Khlaled the
inventor of Algerian nationalism, and did he
campaign in favor of independence? In these
pages Ageron shows himself to be a master sto-
ryteller; his conclusion is negative to both
questions.
This is a strong book of articles based some-
times upon the French archives, containing
elaborate footnotes uneven in their precision,
but with no bibliography or index.
RICHARD M. BRACE
Oakland University
ASIA AND THE EAST
MARK ELVIN. The Pattern of the Chinese Past.
Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1973. Pp.
346. $12.50.
JOHN MESKILL, editor, with the assistance of
J.
MASON GENTZLER. An Introduction to Chinese
Civilization. (Prepared as one of the Compan-
ions to Asian Studies.) New York: Columbia
University Press. 1973. Pp. 699. $17.50. Paper-
bound edition published by D. C. Heath and
Company, Lexington, Mass., $6.95.
The Pattern of the Chinese Past is perhaps
a premature book. The author, a talented
scholar, skims too lightly over his topic, often
ignoring insistent questions. But this study is
important. It attempts to build a new explana-
tory framework upon which a comprehensive
history of China can be written.
Why did China become a huge empire that
could revive, while its Western analogue,
Rome, was only a memory? Professor Elvin
devotes the first third of the book to this ques-
tion. He theorizes that empires grow and en-
dure to the extent that their organizational, eco-
nomic, and military technology exceeds that
of their enemies and overcomes the intractabil-
ity of their own size. In eighty-seven pages the
author sweeps from 200 B.C. tO A.D. i8oo anid
points to key technological assets that under-
girded the Empire in different periods, in-
cluding new weapons, innovations in military
organization, effective logistics, and social pro-
ductivity generally. Few of the facts adduced
here are unfamiliar. Professor Elvin's goal is to
integrate them into a comprehensive theory.
But he acknowledges that the theory is "sim-
ple" and "Ino more than a useful guide" to un-
derstanding.
The second section focuses on another ques-
tion. Why did China undergo, between the
eighthi and twelfth centuries, unprecedented
changes in agriculture, transportation, com-
merce, demographic patterns, and science and
technology? It may be that the author spends
too much time describing change, such as in
farming or in money and credit, with which
most of his readers are familiar, and not
enough time defending more controversial and
original points. For instance, in the Sung large
manors with serfs and serf-like tenants domi-
nated the countryside while great cities pro-
vided the environment for creativity and inno-
vation. Rapid economic growth occurred be-
cause south China was still filling up; therefore
the diffusion of people and technology into
this region raised productivity both north and
south. Overseas contacts stimulated change. At-
titudes thrived that were favorable to science.
The spread of printing democratized learning
and laid the basis for rapid growth.
The final third of the book addresses the
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