Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City through Text and Image
Edited by Zeynep Çelik, Julia Clancy-Smith, and Frances Terpak

Walls of Algiers examines the historical processes that transformed Ottoman Algiers, the "Bulwark of Islam," first into "Alger la blanche," the colonial urban showpiece, and then, after the outbreak of revolution in 1954, into the countermodel of France's global empire. In this volume, the city of Algiers serves as a case study for the analysis of the proactive and reactive social, political, technical, and artistic forces that generate a city's form. Visual sources—prints, photographs, paintings, architectural drawings, urban designs, and film—are treated as primary evidence that complements and even challenges textual documents. The contributors' wide-ranging but intersecting essays span the disciplines of art history, social and cultural history, urban studies, and film history. Contributors include Eric Breitbart, Omar Carlier, Zeynep Çelik, Julia Clancy-Smith, Isabelle Grangaud, Patricia M. E. Lorcin, and Frances Terpak.