In this meticulously researched and cogently argued study, Mélanie Torrent delves beneath the world of diplomacy and international relations to reveal the importance of the struggle for Algerian independence in the imagination of the British anti-colonial left. This major work deepens and broadens understandings of internationalism and socialist solidarity in the heady age of post-war decolonisation. * Saul Dubow, Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History, Cambridge University, UK * Torrent has given us a truly connected history of the Algerian War, delving into British mobilization for independence and peace in Frances prized settler colony. She breaks through boundaries that have limited the scope of previous accounts: boundaries between grassroots mobilization and high-level diplomacy; boundaries between empires; and boundaries between individuals and national, regional, and global networks. This book is meticulously researched and expertly crafted and will be a must-read for historians of decolonization, internationalism, and the making of postwar Europe. * Jessica Lynne Pearson, Macalester College, USA * Covering the period from 1954 to 1965, this work is an impressive feat of scholarship ... For a better understanding of the evolution of the anti-imperialist movement in Britain Torrents book is a necessity. * Liberation * A gripping and highly original account of the transnational entanglements between the British Left, broadly defined, and Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Much more than a history of one decolonising society's observations of another, Mélanie Torrent's book unravels the multiple connections, not just between party political strategists, but amongst rights activists, peace campaigners, anti-colonialists, and those appalled by the racism at the core of western colonialism. * Martin Thomas, University of Exeter, UK * By identifying the role of the Algerian conflict in the mutations of the British left, this book adds complexity not only to this history but also to the history of Britain's place in the world, between the end of the colonial empires, the construction of the European Community and the Atlanticist commitment. * Raphaëlle Branche, University of Paris Nanterre, France *
