This course surveys how imperial ambitions and colonial endeavorsóFrench and British but also Italian German and Ottomanóshaped the histories of Egypt Libya Algeria Tunisia and Morocco across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We inquire into how power was asserted negotiated and resisted from wars of pacification to revolutionary independence movements and along lines of race gender religion class and nation. Our subjects are everyday people as well as political and military leaders and we ask how different groups each experienced and understood the upheavals and oppression of colonial contact. We also consider how different forms of empire were established in North Africa exploring for instance how Algeria could be asserted as French while Egypt remained nominally Ottoman and autonomous. Finally we seek to trace how imperial legacies have continued to affect the region's persistent if troubled ties to Europe.
