Mecca of Revolution

Amid the burgeoning literature on the connections between the global north and the global south, Mecca of Revolution is a pure example of post-colonial, or "south-south," international history. Through an examination of Algeria's interactions with the wider world, from the beginning of its war of independence to the fall of its first post-colonial regime, the Third Worldist perspective on the twentieth century comes into view. Hitherto dominant historical paradigms such as the Cold War are situated in the larger context of decolonization and the re-inclusion of the large majority of humanity in international affairs. At the same time, groundbreaking research in the archives of Algeria and a half-dozen other countries enable Mecca of Revolution to advance beyond the focus on discourse analysis that has typified previous studies of Third World internationalism. It demystifies terms like Non-Alignment, Afro-Asianism, and Bandung, and sheds new light on the relationships between the emergent elites of Africa, the Middle East, Asian, and Latin America. As one of the most prominent sites of post-colonial socialist experimentation and an epicenter of transnational guerrilla activity, Algeria was at the heart of efforts to transform global political and economic structures. Yet, the book also shows how Third Worldism evolved from a subversive transnational phenomenon into a mode of elite cooperation that reinforced the authority of the post-colonial state. In so doing, the Third World movement played a key role in the construction of the totalizing international order of the late-twentieth century. Ultimately, Mecca of Revolution shows the "post-colonial world" is all of our world.

Jeffrey James Byrne is Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia.