Avner Ofraths excellent book shows that citizenship was an ever-shifting site of political contestation in colonial Algeria, bringing Muslims, Jews, and French people into both conflict and productive debate about the ways that unity need not mean uniformity. Richly documented, the book has obvious relevance to contemporary debates about citizenship. * Joshua Cole, Professor of History, University of Michigan, USA * Colonial Algeria and the Politics of Citizenship offers a sorely needed study of the politics of legal status in French Algeria. Drawing on fascinating and often surprising sources, Ofrath deftly demonstrates that colonial projects of inclusion and exclusion were not limited to Algerias borders, but shaped the nature of belonging in France itself. * Jessica Marglin, Associate Professor of Religion, Law, and History and Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Southern California, USA * This important book demonstrates how the French colonial regime in Algeria was dominated throughout its history by a hierarchy of racial, confessional, and ethnic differences. But, in doing so, it also provides a much wider insight into the ways in which citizenship was constructed in the borderlands of modern Europe. * Martin Conway, Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Oxford, UK *
