Alistair Horne is the author of eighteen books, including The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, How Far from Austerlitz?: Napoleon 1805-1815, and the official biography of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. He is a fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford, and lives in Oxfordshire. In 1993 Horne was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur and in 2003 received a knighthood for his work in the history of France. He lives in England.
“He brings a long historical perspective and six decades of
experience to bear on the affairs of the day.” –Salon.com
"First the Pentagon plugged the movie, now President Bush is
reading the book...A Savage War of Peace, British historian
Alistair Horne's celebrated 1977 account of the [Algerian]
war...Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who
recommended A Savage War of Peace to Bush, said recently on PBS'
Charlie Rose Show that he did not believe 'that the French
experience could be applied precisely to the United States. But I
thought there were enough similarities and enough complexities and
enough tragedy for the president to gain a perspective on his own
period.'" —Associated Press
"Anyone interested in Iraq should read this book immediately."
—Thomas Ricks, The Washington Post
“[Horne’s] tome is so well written it reads more like a novel but
is, in fact, a work of superior historical narrative…There are few
historical works that provide so comprehensive a treatment of
revolutionary and counterinsurgency warfare, domestic and
international politics, and economics and ideology.” –Marine Corps
Gazette
“When Horne’s book first appeared, it seemed to be an account of
one major, but now largely closed, chapter in the history of
postwar decolonization. Subsequent developments–in Algeria and
elsewhere–have made the past prologue. [It] has become a de facto
textbook for American Military officers facing time in Iraq...”
—Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed
“This thirty-year-old history, written before the Iranian
revolution, the Algerian civil war, and Al Qaeda, captures a
contingent moment in the conflict between the West and the Arab
world, when present-day dogmas were hardly imagined by most. It
provides a much needed reminder that modern history is not made by
the ‘clash of civilizations’ but by people.” —Harper’s Magazine
"The present conflict in the Middle East is frighteningly similar,
making this book a good volume to have on library shelves. Horne
provides a new preface."—Library Journal (Classic Returns)
"[T]he read of choice for many U.S. military officers serving in
Iraq...[this] universally acclaimed history...should have been
mandatory reading for the civilian and military leaders who opted
to invade Iraq" —The Washington Times
“There is enough to make this the most complete history of the
Algerian war yet written, one which will be indispensable for
future historians. It is compelling reading, filled with intimate
detail about characters and situations that have served as
inspiration for a dozen novels from The Day of the Jackal on.” –The
Los Angeles Times
A “highly readable, toughly edited history that blends the pace and
sweep of a work of fiction with a relentless pursuit of every main
actor still alive and willing to talk about the war.”–The
Washington Post Book World
“Alistair Horne is one of the best writers of history in the
English speaking world. A Savage War of Peace shows him at the peak
of his powers."–The Financial Times
“An awesome and superlative piece of historical narrative…Mr. Horne
has a terrible and tremendous tale to tell, one full of omen for
posterity.”–The Times (London)
“An accomplished historian of earlier French wars has written an
admirably impartial, lucid and readable book…as full and objective
a history of the Algerian war as we are likely to see for some
years.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A book of compelling power…magnificent. It has the poetic sense of
place without which no great work of history can be written.”–The
Spectator
“…brilliantly and compassionately told by an historian whose
mastery of this subject is complete.”
–The Washington Post
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