The French Army and Its African Soldiers: The Years of Decolonization

As part of France's opposition to the independence of its former colonies in the years following World War II, its army remained deeply invested in preventing the decolonization of the territories comprising French West Africa (FWA). Even as late as the 1950s, the French Army clung to the hope that it was possible to retain FWA as a colony, believing that its relations with African soldiers could offer the perfect model for continued ties between France and its West African territories.

In The French Army and Its African Soldiers Ruth Ginio examines the French Army's attempts to win the hearts and souls of the local population at a time of turbulence and uncertainty regarding future relations between the colonizer and colony. Through the prism of the army's relationship with its African soldiers, Ginio considers how the army's activities and political position during FWA's decolonization laid the foundation for France's continued active presence in some of these territories after independence. This project is the first thorough examination of the French Army's involvement in West Africa before independence and provides the essential historical background to understanding France's complex postcolonial military relations with its former territories in Africa.

Author: Ruth Ginio
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 01/01/2017
Pages: 282
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780803253391

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2017

About the Author
Ruth Ginio is an associate professor in the Department of History and is the head of the Inter-University Program for African Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa (Nebraska, 2006) and the coeditor (with Efrat Ben Ze'ev and Jay Winter) of Shadows of War: A History of Silence in the Twentieth Century.