"In this account, Martin Evans and John Phillips explore Algeria's recent and very bloody history, demonstrating how the high hopes of independence turned into anger as young Algerians grew increasingly alienated. Unemployed, frustrated by the corrupt military regime and excluded by the West, the post-independence generation needed new heroes, and some found them in Osama bin Laden and the rising Islamist movement."--Jacket.

Preface: why Algeria? -- Introduction: the role of the past in Algerian history -- Dissident landscape -- Forced marriage : French Algeria 1830-1962 -- Darling of the Non-Aligned Movement, 1962-78 -- Black October -- Political Islam -- Algeria's agony -- The Algerian question -- The new imperialism and the war on terror -- Afterword: the anger that will not go away.