كتاب تاريخ الجزائر الثقافي

الجزء التاسع - محتوى الجزء التاسع - ج: 9 - ص: 368

Preface

Writing a multi volume book about the cultural history of Algeria is not an easy task, maybe it is an adventure. Since the ٧ th century Algeria has been a part of the Arabic and Islamic world. So, one might argue that Algeria has no particular culture of her own. Yet, the book deals with such a particular culture since the early ١٦ th century when Algeria became a part of the Ottoman Empire and gradually developed a geographical and political identity. In ١٨٣٠, the French occupation put an end to this identity. The French, trying to integrate Algeria into their Metropole, cut off Algeria from the Arabic and Islamic world and suppressed many expressions of Algerian culture.

The sources of this study are numerous. They include manuscripts, private papers, correspondences, theses, archival reports and published works in Arabic, French and English . In addition to the Algerian libraries , I had to do research in North Africa, Middle Eastern and European and American libraries, including those of Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, France, Britain and the USA. Some of these libraries I visited several times. While in America, I worked at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and University of Minnesota in their own rich collections, rear books, and interlibrary loan systems, where I found an important deposit of information about my subject.

I first became interested in studying Algerian culture when I was a student at Cairo University during the fifties. Since then some findings of my research appeared in the form of articles which I published years ago. I also edited some manuscripts and wrote biographical studies of a number of leading representatives of Algerian culture. In ١٩٨١ I was able to publish the first two volumes of this book. They covered the Ot-

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