ABSTRACT
As a region bordering on the Mediterranean, North Africa has been shaped in some measure by the geography, climate, and cultural values of that great inland sea. Yet despite some common denominators that North Africa shares with its neighbors on the shoreline–those elements that contribute to the category of historical factors Fernand Braudel labeled “la longue duree”–its history is a unique mix of political and cultural forces. Following World War II and the full independence of the French mandates in the Middle East, the Algerian nationalists proposed an Algerian republic as part of a special North African Union bound to France. Algeria was thrust directly into the fires of colonialism virtually unaware of what awaited it, and the French colonial experience proved to be long, brutal, and thorough. Libya and Tunisia, in contrast, enjoyed an extended precolonial period during which their respective regimes introduced Ottoman-style reforms before the imposition of colonial rule.
