Incidental Archaeologists offers an in-depth, rigorous archival exploration that, while providing a clear history to archaeological policy under the French in Algeria, also uncovers its links to affective relationships to the past, the construction of the racialized and colonized other, and the many forms of violence that are attendant with colonial force and often glossed as 'pacification.
(Antiquity) Incidental Archaeologists will likely remain the main reference on the impact of the Roman imperial legacy in French Algeria for quite some time. Through an admirable engagement with the archives and the existing literature, Effros has provided invaluable depth to the well-known influence of the Roman model on French colonial officers.
(Modern & Contemporary France) Incidental Archaeologists makes a valuable addition to the historiography on imperializing archaeology, which continues to reveal how the agents of European empires engaged with antiquities in foreign lands... Effros also makes a contribution to the study of classics and colonialism.
(H-France Reviews) More than anyone before, Effros lays bare how deeply enmeshed the largely self- appointed French custodians of Algeria's Roman pastmost of them military officerswere in deeply destructive forces.... Incidental Archaeologists offers the most complete account of how archaeological endeavors became part of French efforts to occupy and colonize Algeria.... It should find avid readers among all those interested in the intersecting histories of archaeology, public memory, and colonialism, not only in Algeria.
(American Historical Review) Prof. Effros has produced a very impressive book that combines an account of the pioneering role of French army officers in the recovery of the physical remnants of the Roman era in Algeria, with the story of French imperial expansion in the region from the start of the conquest of the area in 1830 through 1870, and the uses to which archaeology was put in the service of that penetration. Incidental Archaeologists is an engaging, informative read for interested in archaeology, Roman History, and French military operations and colonialism in North Africa.
(The NYMAS Review) Effros convincingly demonstrates that officers' and settlers' search for historical justification, far from 'incidental' to their full-time professions, was necessary and integral to the colonial project. We might even say that if classical remains in North Africa had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent them, like King Solomon's Mines or Prester John.
(Journal of Modern History)
