This timely volume will be most useful to scholars and students in these areas, but will also appeal to those with an interest in the history of the Franco-Algerian relationship and its ongoing intricacies fifty years after decolonization.
French Studies, Vol. 68, no 2
This is an important and profoundly interesting book. It is timely in every sense ... Read more... this book’s achievements is that its joint authorship finds expression in a seamless clarity of writing, intelligence and insight.
Journal of European Studies, 44
This book is very successful in putting together and analyzing a rich and diverse portfolio of images that have circulated (or not) between France and Algeria over the course of Franco-Algerian history. It breaks new ground in that it pays close attention to visual representations outside of film and interrogates the power or usefulness of photographs in refining – or derailing? – historical narratives.
Contemporary French Civilization, Vol. 39, No. 3
Contesting Views is an incisive and timely analysis of visual culture and its role in the mediation of Franco-Algerian relations, and makes a convincing case for the importance of visual image and visual forms in considering the postcoloniality of both France and Algeria. James House, University of Leeds Contesting Views is a meticulously researched work, brimming with relevant references to a range of secondary literature on Franco-Algerian relations, and one which also demonstrates a welcome gendered awareness of female invisibility in many of the images discussed. This insightful and wide-ranging study recognizes the significant and, until now, underrepresented role played by the visual in informing pre- and post-colonial views of Franco-Algerian relations, and will thus appeal to both general and specialist readers with an interest in such relations, and in visual culture as a whole. Siobhan McIlvanney, Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies Show Less