toman period with an introductory chapter on the ١٥ th century. My plan was to continue my research to cover also the French period, but an un-fortunate event took place in ١٩٨٨ at Heathrow Airport, (London), that is the loss of more than three drafted chapters, diary, notes, personal pa-pers and photocopied documents from different archives. It was a big blow for my project. For tlrree years, the shock prevented me from re-suming research. The big question I faced was: How to start again?
After loosing hope in recovering the lost briefcase, I slowly re-sumed my research around ١٩٩١. In ١٩٩٣,١ was fortunate to receive a Fulbright Grant. Meanwhile the University of Algiers gave me a sabbat-ical year and the University of Minnesota offered me library and other research facilities .
The original plan was to cover all forms and aspects of the Algerian culture. I had to study also the political, economic and social factors which had an impact on the culture. In both the Ottoman and the French periods I dealt with education, literature, jurisprudence, theology, logic, travels, sciences, mysticism, art and music. New forms and aspects of this culture appeared during the French period, including newspapers, theater, cinema, radio, museums, and printing. Scholars who contribut-ed to the development of the culture were also studied but within. The framework of the main subject which they contributed to the book therefore is not a collection of biographies, rather biographies are part of the main stream of the cultural aspect under study. From another an-gle, the book is divided into two distinct parts. The first part is a theo-retical and interpretive study of the factors that shaped Algerian culture and forms through which it has been expressed. The second part is a particular study of the texts which were written by Algerian scholars in their respective fields, e.g. history , literature, medicine, music, etc.
During the French occupation, French Orientalists played an impor-tant part in discovering the heritage of Arabic and Islamic Algeria. The coming of René Basset in the I ٨٨٠'s, the establishment of the Ecole des letters (in ١٩٠٩, it became Faculté des lettres when the new University
