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As Allan Christelow's rich study of Algerians who cross borders shows, Algerian migration has a complex history involving the circulation of ideas as well as people, just as it provides a fascinating means of exploring the many strategies deployed by Algerians in the face of Ottoman and then French control and, today, globalization. The book takes a long chronological approach (starting in the late eighteenth century) alongside a broad geographical framework (from the Pacific to the Middle East to North America - in addition to France) to better put 'the Algerian experience into historical and comparative perspective' (p. 174).
As the author remarks, Algeria, as a 'frontier society' has often been situated uncomfortably on the fault line of tensions between Western and Islamic worlds, making it acutely susceptible to geopolitical shifts (p. 185). Simultaneously, however, the country has produced individuals capable of understanding a multitude of political, cultural, and intellectual environments and serving as cultural intermediaries in different roles (interpreters, scholars, and diplomats), thereby challenging - both implicitly and explicitly - many a cultural binary. Indeed, one of the book's key aims is to analyze, through a study of the longue...