Awards

• Winner of Eugen Weber Book Prize 2023 (United States)

Overview

"The surprising story of the wine industry's role in the rise of French Algeria and the fall of empire. ""We owe to wine a blessing far more precious than gold: the peopling of Algeria with Frenchmen,"" stated agriculturist Pierre Berthault in the early 1930s. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Europeans had displaced Algerians from the colony's best agricultural land and planted grapevines. Soon enough, wine was the primary export of a region whose mostly Muslim inhabitants didn't drink alcohol. Settlers made fortunes while drawing large numbers of Algerians into salaried work for the first time. But the success of Algerian wine resulted in friction with French producers, challenging the traditional view that imperial possessions should complement, not compete with, the metropole. By the middle of the twentieth century, amid the fight for independence, Algerians had come to see the rows of vines as an especially hated symbol of French domination. After the war, Algerians had to decide how far they would go to undo the transformations the colonists had wrought-including the world's fourth-biggest wine industry. Owen White examines Algeria's experiment with nationalized wine production in worker-run vineyards, the pressures that resulted in the failure of that experiment, and the eventual uprooting of most of the country's vines. With a special focus on individual experiences of empire, from the wealthiest Europeans to the poorest laborers in the fields, The Blood of the Colony shows the central role of wine in the economic life of French Algeria and in its settler culture. White makes clear that the industry left a long-term mark on the development of the nation."

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9780674248441

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Reviews

A tour de force. This lively book explores the centrality of vineyards and wine to Algeria's economy and society in a revealing, long-neglected story about the crown jewel in France's colonial empire. White uses wine to shed new light on Algeria's links with France, colonial labor relations, capitalism, and trade. He also engages with the history of science and technology and environmental studies while providing insight into a devastating war of decolonization and its fallout. -- Eric T. Jennings, author of <i>Escape from Vichy: The Refugee Exodus to the French Caribbean</i> Deeply researched and elegantly written, this is the first major work on wine in Algeria, which is surprising given the extent to which Algeria helped rescue the French wine industry from the crisis of phylloxera. White tells a story that is at once French and Algerian, but also global, seamlessly weaving together histories of agriculture, labor, political economy, environment, migration, race, and colonial governance. I highly recommend this erudite and compelling book. -- Mary Dewhurst Lewis, author of <i>Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia, 1881-1938</i> A beautifully researched and lucidly written book. Explaining how and why wine became the lifeblood of French Algeria, White tacks gracefully between the local and the global, weaving social, economic, and political history into a comprehensive portrait of a settler society. A commodity history that is also a concise, accessible account of French colonization in North Africa and its legacies. -- Jennifer E. Sessions, author of <i>By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria</i> In tracing the emergence of Euro-Algerian viticulturalists and the wine industry they developed, White achieves a sweeping view of French colonialism in Algeria grounded in the everyday experiences of those who made and unmade the Algerian wine industry. Innovative in approach and impressive in scope, this important book will garner a wide readership. -- Elizabeth Heath, author of <i>Wine, Sugar, and the Making of Modern France</i> A superb, elegantly written history of colonial Algeria's immense wine industry and its complex relationship to mainland France. In this landmark work in the history of empire, labor, and capitalism, White covers the full span of Algeria's tumultuous colonial past, from French conquest to the first years of national independence. A tremendous achievement. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France's Long Reconstruction: In Search of the Modern Republic</i> This wonderfully insightful book shows us how wine production in Algeria became integral to France's colonization project. As White makes clear, wine exports reconfigured Algeria's economy within a fabric of colonial dependency. Little wonder that vineyards figured among the most decisive battlegrounds of the Algerian revolution. From start to finish, the detail is brilliant, the conclusions powerful. -- Martin Thomas, author of <i>Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and Their Roads from Empire</i> Through the prism of a single commodity, White offers new insights into the economics and cultural significance of French settler colonialism. An elegant and illuminating study. -- David Todd, author of <i>A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century</i> White describes the economics of the Algerian wine business in revealing detail. -- Richard Vinen * Literary Review *

Through the prism of a single commodity, White offers new insights into the economics and cultural significance of French settler colonialism. An elegant and illuminating study. -- David Todd, author of <i>A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century</i> This wonderfully insightful book shows us how wine production in Algeria became integral to France's colonization project. As White makes clear, wine exports reconfigured Algeria's economy within a fabric of colonial dependency. Little wonder that vineyards figured among the most decisive battlegrounds of the Algerian revolution. From start to finish, the detail is brilliant, the conclusions powerful. -- Martin Thomas, author of <i>Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and Their Roads from Empire</i> A superb, elegantly written history of colonial Algeria's immense wine industry and its complex relationship to mainland France. In this landmark work in the history of empire, labor, and capitalism, White covers the full span of Algeria's tumultuous colonial past, from French conquest to the first years of national independence. A tremendous achievement. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France's Long Reconstruction: In Search of the Modern Republic</i> In tracing the emergence of Euro-Algerian viticulturalists and the wine industry they developed, White achieves a sweeping view of French colonialism in Algeria grounded in the everyday experiences of those who made and unmade the Algerian wine industry. Innovative in approach and impressive in scope, this important book will garner a wide readership. -- Elizabeth Heath, author of <i>Wine, Sugar, and the Making of Modern France</i> A beautifully researched and lucidly written book. Explaining how and why wine became the lifeblood of French Algeria, White tacks gracefully between the local and the global, weaving social, economic, and political history into a comprehensive portrait of a settler society. A commodity history that is also a concise, accessible account of French colonization in North Africa and its legacies. -- Jennifer E. Sessions, author of <i>By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria</i> Deeply researched and elegantly written, this is the first major work on wine in Algeria, which is surprising given the extent to which Algeria helped rescue the French wine industry from the crisis of phylloxera. White tells a story that is at once French and Algerian, but also global, seamlessly weaving together histories of agriculture, labor, political economy, environment, migration, race, and colonial governance. I highly recommend this erudite and compelling book. -- Mary Dewhurst Lewis, author of <i>Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia, 1881-1938</i> A tour de force. This lively book explores the centrality of vineyards and wine to Algeria's economy and society in a revealing, long-neglected story about the crown jewel in France's colonial empire. White uses wine to shed new light on Algeria's links with France, colonial labor relations, capitalism, and trade. He also engages with the history of science and technology and environmental studies while providing insight into a devastating war of decolonization and its fallout. -- Eric T. Jennings, author of <i>Escape from Vichy: The Refugee Exodus to the French Caribbean</i>

Author Information

Owen White is Professor of History at the University of Delaware. He is author of Children of the French Empire: Miscegenation and Colonial Society in French West Africa, 1895–1960 and coeditor of In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World.

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