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Old texts, new practices: Islamic reform in modern Morocco

meeting reports, describing how, in her Bab el-Oued cell, the use of the French language discouraged those less fluent in the language, thus hindering the integration into the party of indigenous activists. Several of these individuals, such as Abdelkader Guerroudj, we follow into the War of Independence. Concerning the War, the specialist reader may feel frustrated that the author spends a significant proportion of the chapter providing an outline of the course of the war, rather than focusing on the fascinating details of the creation of the communist armed combatant group, the Combattants de la Libération, that were provided in the interviews. These reveal how, during the war, the party leadership connected armed combat with political mobilisation and propaganda activities, developing both until the PCA–FLN (National Liberation Front) agreement of July 1956, which defined the relations between the two organisations until 1962. In seeking to make the text accessible to a wider audience, the book is framed in a familiar, but somewhat awkward way. The opening sentence of the first chapter (‘The Frenchmen who conquered the land now called Algeria were ruthless’, 11) and the final sentence of the last chapter (‘On 5 July [1962] the GPRA declared Algeria independent,’ 264) delineate a history that runs from 1830 to 1962. The opening chapter on the whole of the nineteenth century reads as fairly generic, especially as there were no communists to speak of in this period. On the tail end of the book, ending the narrative in 1962 avoids developing questions about pluralism and the place of the communists in post-independence Algeria, questions that are raised by the book itself. The brief, appendix-like last section about independent Algeria will leave frustrated readers who wish to know more about activists’ lives in the PCA’s final four years, before its disbandment in 1966. This chronological definition of the object makes the PCA into much more of a ‘French object’ than it is, when recent research discusses continuities between the Ottoman and the colonial period, or argues against the ‘end of history’ in 1962 and in favour of reconnecting colonial and postcolonial history. A result of both the necessity to appeal to a broader audience and lack of sources, the recourse to biographies is somewhat uneven throughout the book. Albert Camus seems omnipresent and not only in the sections about the 1930s, when he was a party member. As for others, such as Amar Ouzegane (PCA first secretary after the Second World War) or Ben Ali Boukort, we are left with frustratingly little. Nevertheless, Drew’s revisiting of communist history thus conveys voices of communists themselves and with a biographical and local approach, deepens our understanding of the party.