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Title: A Look at French Counter-Insurgency
Review: A combat veteran of World War II, a world-class journalist, and a lifelong student of French history, Alistair Horne is well equipped to tell the tale of the Algerian war of independence. Professional warriors and historians should read this book because it portrays the same forces that were at work in Vietnam in a completely different environment. It's all here--a tightly organized group willing to stop at nothing to gain power, tradition-bound villagers enlisted in the cause of a left-wing revolution, a hopelessly divided Western nation trying to live up to its commitments, Western-educated intellectuals attacking the West, Westernized elites caught in the middle of a civil war, and ethnic minorities left out in the cold when power is handed over to the "natives," not to mention pacification, "hearts and minds," terrorism, and "search and destroy."
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