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Walls of Algiers examines the historical processes that transformed Ottoman Algiers, the "Bulwark of Islam," into "Alger la blanche," the colonial urban showpiece—and, after the outbreak of revolution in 1954—counter-model of France's global empire. In this volume, the city of Algiers serves as a case study for the analysis of the proactive and reactive social, political, technical, and artistic forces that generate a city's form. Visual sources—prints, photographs, paintings, architectural drawings, urban designs, and film—are treated as primary evidence that complements and even challenges textual documents.

The contributors' wide-ranging but intersecting essays span the disciplines of art history, social and cultural history, urban studies, and film history. Walls of Algiers presents a multifaceted look at the social use of urban space in a North African city. Its contributors' innovative methodologies allow important insights into often overlooked aspects of life in a city whose name even today conjures up enchantment as well as incomprehensible violence.

In this first in-depth study of the ruling family of Tunisia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kallander investigates the palace as a site of familial and political significance. Through extensive archival research, she elucidates the domestic economy of the palace as well as the changing relationship between the ruling family of Tunis and the government, thus revealing how the private space of the palace mirrored the public political space.

“Instead of viewing the period as merely a precursor to colonial occupation and the nation-state as emphasized in precolonial or nationalist histories, this narrative moves away from images of stagnation and dependency to insist upon dynamism,” Kallander explains. She delves deep into palace dynamics, comparing them to those of monarchies outside of the Ottoman Empire to find persuasive evidence of a global modernity. She demonstrates how upper-class Muslim women were active political players, exerting their power through displays of wealth such as consumerism and philanthropy. Ultimately, she creates a rich view of the Husaynid dynastic culture that will surprise many, and stimulate debate and further research among scholars of Ottoman Tunisia.

International migration between countries in Latin America became increasingly important during the twentieth century, but for a long time it was the subject of only limited research. Scott Whiteford sets the Argentina-Bolivia experience in historical perspective by examining the macrolevel factors that influenced social change in both countries and brought streams of migration into Argentina. Seasonal labor, the expansion of capitalist agriculture, international migration, and urbanization are central topics in this in-depth study of Bolivian migrants in Northwest Argentina.

Whiteford’s vivid portrayal of the lives and working conditions of the migrants is based on two years of research during which he lived with the workers on a sugar plantation and, after the harvest, accompanied them to other farms and to the city of Salta in their search for more work. He traces the development of plantation agriculture in Northwest Argentina and the processes by which the plantation gained access to cheap labor and maintained control over it.

As Bolivians migrated to Argentina in ever greater numbers, many recruited for the harvest remained. Whiteford’s analysis of the diverse strategies employed by workers and their families to support themselves during the post-harvest season is a major contribution to migration literature. The four distinct but related patterns of migration that he describes created a labor reserve that transcends rural/urban designations, one that is utilized by employers in both the countryside and the city.