An illuminating discussion of this turning point in mid-century history. Mr. Horne gives the background going back to 1848, "when the Second French Republic--in its infinite wisdom or lack thereof--declared Algeria to be a departement, and [it] acted like a sort of albatross around the neck of every successive French government." We move on to parallels in Rhodesia today and Indochina yesterday and to a description of the two sides in the civil war itself: "The Algerians among Muslims are very, very fierce people. You ask any German soldier who took part in either the First or Second World War.... And on the other hand ... the pieds- noirs weren't really French in the way that you and I understand French. They were very meridional, passionate, many of them Spanish, Italian, and were being baked hard by the sun ..."