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Ayn Rand | External links | External links
Rand's papers at The Library of Congress
Ayn Rand Lexicon – searchable database
Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rand from the Ayn Rand Institute
"Writings of Ayn Rand" – from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
Category:1905 births
Category:1982 deaths
Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Category:20th-century American essayists
Category:20th-century American novelists
Category:20th-century American philosophers
Category:20th-century American screenwriters
Category:20th-century American women writers
Category:20th-century atheists
Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers
Category:20th-century Russian philosophers
Category:Activists from New York (state)
Category:American anti-fascists
Category:American atheists
Category:American critics of Christianity
Category:American critics of religions
Category:American ethicists
Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Category:American political activists
Category:American political philosophers
Category:American science fiction writers
Category:American women dramatists and playwrights
Category:American women essayists
Category:American women novelists
Category:American women philosophers
Category:American women science fiction and fantasy writers
Category:American women screenwriters
Category:American writers on atheism
Category:American Writers Association members
Category:American Zionists
Category:Aristotelian philosophers
Category:Atheists from the Russian Empire
Category:Atheist philosophers
Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery
Category:Critics of socialism
Category:Deaths from congestive heart failure in the United States
Category:Dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire
Category:Epistemologists
Category:Exophonic writers
Category:Female critics of feminism
Category:Jewish American atheists
Category:Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
Category:Jewish American essayists
Category:Jewish American novelists
Category:Jewish American screenwriters
Category:Jewish anti-communists
Category:Jewish women writers
Category:Metaphysicians
Category:Natural law ethicists
Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States
Category:Novelists from New York (state)
Category:Objectivists
Category:Moral realists
Category:MPAPAI members
Category:Philosophers from New York (state)
Category:Political philosophers
Category:Pseudonymous women writers
Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)
Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States
Category:Writers from New York City
Category:Writers from Saint Petersburg |
Ayn Rand | Table of Content | Short description, Life and career, Early life, Early fiction, ''The Fountainhead'' and political activism, ''Atlas Shrugged'' and Objectivism, Later years, Literary approach, influences and reception, Influences, Contemporary reviews, Academic assessments of Rand's fiction, Philosophy, Metaphysics and epistemology, Ethics and politics, Relationship to other philosophers, Early academic reaction, 21st-century academic reaction, Legacy, Popular interest, Political influence, Objectivist movement, Selected works, Notes, References, Works cited, Further reading, External links |
Alain Connes | short description | Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. He was a professor at the , , Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982. |
Alain Connes | Career | Career
Alain Connes attended high school at in Marseille, and was then a student of the classes préparatoires in . Between 1966 and 1970 he studied at École normale supérieure in Paris, and in 1973 he obtained a PhD from Pierre and Marie Curie University, under the supervision of Jacques Dixmier.
From 1970 to 1974 he was research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and during 1975 he held a visiting position at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada.
In 1976 he returned to France and worked as professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University until 1980 and at CNRS between 1981 and 1984. Moreover, since 1979 he holds the Léon Motchane Chair at IHES. From 1984 until his retirement in 2017 he held the chair of Analysis and Geometry at Collège de France.
In parallel, he was awarded a distinguished professorship at Vanderbilt University between 2003 and 2012, and at Ohio State University between 2012 and 2021. |
Alain Connes | Research | Research
Connes' main research interests revolved around operator algebras. Besides noncommutative geometry, he has applied his works in various areas of mathematics and number theory, differential geometry.Alexander Hellemans, "The Geometer of Particle Physics" Scientific American, 24 July 2006 Since the 1990s, he developed noncommutative geometry.
In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. He also formulated the Connes embedding problem.
Following this, he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the Baum–Connes conjecture. He also introduced cyclic cohomology in the early 1980s as a first step in the study of noncommutative differential geometry.
He was a member of Nicolas Bourbaki. Over many years, he collaborated extensively with Henri Moscovici. |
Alain Connes | Awards and honours | Awards and honours
Connes was awarded the Peccot-Vimont Prize in 1976, the Ampère Prize in 1980, the Fields Medal in 1982, the Clay Research Award in 2000 and the Crafoord Prize in 2001. The French National Centre for Scientific Research granted him the silver medal in 1977 and the gold medal in 2004.
He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1974 at Vancouver and in 1986 at Berkeley, and a plenary speaker at the ICM in 1978 at Helsinki.
thumb|Alain Connes at a conference in 2012 in Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
He was awarded honorary degrees from Queen's University at Kingston in 1979, University of Rome Tor Vergata in 1997, University of Oslo in 1999, University of Southern Denmark in 2009, Université libre de Bruxelles in 2010 and Shanghai Fudan University in 2017.
Since 1982 he is a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was elected member of several foreign academies and societies, including the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1980, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1983, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989, the London Mathematical Society in 1994, the Canadian Academy of Sciences in 1995 (incorporated since 2002 in the Royal Society of Canada), the US National Academy of Sciences in 1997, the Russian Academy of Science in 2003 and the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium in 2016.
In 2001 he received (together with his co-authors André Lichnerowicz and Marco Schutzenberger) the Peano Prize for his work Triangle of Thoughts. |
Alain Connes | Family | Family
Alain Connes is the middle-born of three sons – born to parents both of whom lived to be 101 years old. He married in 1971. |
Alain Connes | Books | Books
Alain Connes and Matilde Marcolli, Noncommutative Geometry, Quantum Fields and Motives, Colloquium Publications, American Mathematical Society, 2007,
Alain Connes, André Lichnerowicz, and Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger, Triangle of Thought, translated by Jennifer Gage, American Mathematical Society, 2001,
Jean-Pierre Changeux and Alain Connes, Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics, translated by M. B. DeBevoise, Princeton University Press, 1998,
Alain Connes, Noncommutative Geometry, Academic Press, 1994, |
Alain Connes | See also | See also
Bost–Connes system
Cyclic category
Cyclic homology
Factor (functional analysis)
Higgs boson
C*-algebra
Noncommutative quantum field theory
M-theory
Groupoid
Spectral triple
Criticism of non-standard analysis
Riemann hypothesis |
Alain Connes | References | References |
Alain Connes | External links | External links
Alain Connes Official Web Site containing downloadable papers, and his book Non-commutative geometry, .
Alain Connes' Standard Model
An interview with Alain Connes and a discussion about it
Category:1947 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from Draguignan
Category:20th-century French mathematicians
Category:21st-century French mathematicians
Category:French mathematical analysts
Category:Differential geometers
Category:Fields Medalists
Category:Clay Research Award recipients
Category:École Normale Supérieure alumni
Category:Academic staff of the Collège de France
Category:Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Category:Vanderbilt University faculty
Category:Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Category:Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Category:Members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Category:London Mathematical Society |
Alain Connes | Table of Content | short description, Career, Research, Awards and honours, Family, Books, See also, References, External links |
Allan Dwan | Short description | Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. |
Allan Dwan | Early life | Early life
Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan was the younger son of commercial traveler of woolen clothing Joseph Michael Dwan (1857–1917) and his wife Mary Jane Dwan (née Hunt). The family moved to the United States when he was seven years old on December 4, 1892, by ferry from Windsor to Detroit, according to his naturalization petition of August 1939. His elder brother, Leo Garnet Dwan (1883–1964), became a physician.
Allan Dwan studied engineering at the University of Notre Dame and then worked for a lighting company in Chicago. He had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry, and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California where the climate allowed them to continue productions requiring warm weather. Soon, a number of movie companies worked there year-round, and in 1911, Dwan began working part-time in Hollywood. While still in New York, in 1917 he was the founding president of the East Coast chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association. |
Allan Dwan | Career | Career
Dwan started his directing career by accident in 1911, when he was sent by his employers to California, in order to locate a company that had vanished. Dwan managed to track the company down, and learned that they were waiting for a film director (who was an alcoholic) to return from a binge and allow them to resume their work. Dwan wired back to his employers in Chicago, informing them of the situation, and suggested that they disband the company. They wired back, instructing Dwan to direct the stalled film. When Dwan informed the company of the situation, and that their jobs were on the line, they responded: "You're the best damn director we ever saw".
Dwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California, from August 1911 to July 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion pictures studios in California history. On August 12, 2011, a plaque was unveiled on the Wolff building at Third Avenue and La Mesa Boulevard commemorating Dwan and the Flying A Studios origins in La Mesa, California.
After making a series of westerns and comedies, Dwan directed fellow Canadian-American Mary Pickford in several very successful movies as well as her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, notably in the acclaimed 1922 Robin Hood. Around that time, he also directed Carole Lombard in A Perfect Crime, her film debut. Dwan directed Gloria Swanson in eight feature films, and one short film made in the short-lived sound-on-film process Phonofilm. This short, also featuring Thomas Meighan and Henri de la Falaise, was produced as a joke, for the April 26, 1925 "Lambs' Gambol" for The Lambs, with the film showing Swanson crashing the all-male club.
Following the introduction of the talkies, Dwan directed child-star Shirley Temple in Heidi (1937) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938).
Dwan helped launch the career of two other successful Hollywood directors, Victor Fleming, who went on to direct The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, and Marshall Neilan, who became an actor, director, writer and producer. Over a long career spanning almost 50 years, Dwan directed 125 motion pictures, some of which were highly acclaimed, such as the 1949 box office hit, Sands of Iwo Jima. He directed his last movie in 1961.
Being one of the last surviving pioneers of the cinema, he was interviewed at length for the 1980 documentary series Hollywood.
He died in Los Angeles at the age of 96, and is interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California.
Dwan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard.
Daniel Eagan of Film Journal International described Dwan as one of the early pioneers of cinema, stating that his style "is so basic as to seem invisible, but he treats his characters with uncommon sympathy and compassion." |
Allan Dwan | Partial filmography as director | Partial filmography as director
The Restless Spirit (1913)
Back to Life (1913)
Bloodhounds of the North (1913)
The Lie (1914)
The Honor of the Mounted (1914)
The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch (1914)
Remember Mary Magdalen (1914)
Discord and Harmony (1914)
The Embezzler (1914)
The Lamb, the Woman, the Wolf (1914)
The End of the Feud (1914)
The Test (1914) (*writer)
The Tragedy of Whispering Creek (1914)
The Unlawful Trade (1914)
The Forbidden Room (1914)
The Hopes of Blind Alley (1914)
Richelieu (1914)
Wildflower (1914)
A Small Town Girl (1915)
David Harum (1915)
A Girl of Yesterday (1915)
The Pretty Sister of Jose (1915)
Jordan Is a Hard Road (1915)
The Habit of Happiness (1916)
The Good Bad Man (1916)
An Innocent Magdalene (1916)
The Half-Breed (1916)
Manhattan Madness (1916)
Accusing Evidence (1916)
Panthea (1917)
A Modern Musketeer (1917)
Bound in Morocco (1918)
Headin' South (1918)
Mr. Fix-It (1918)
He Comes Up Smiling (1918)
Cheating Cheaters (1919)
The Dark Star (1919)
Getting Mary Married (1919)
Soldiers of Fortune (1919)
In The Heart of a Fool (1920) also producer
The Forbidden Thing (1920) also producer
A Splendid Hazard (1920)
A Perfect Crime (1921)
The Sin of Martha Queed (1921)
A Broken Doll (1921)
Robin Hood (1922)
Zaza (1923)
Big Brother (1923)
Manhandled (1924)
Argentine Love (1924)
The Coast of Folly (1925)
Night Life of New York (1925)
Stage Struck (1925)
Padlocked (1926)
Sea Horses (1926)
Summer Bachelors (1926)
Tin Gods (1926)
French Dressing (1927)
The Joy Girl (1927)
East Side, West Side (1927)
The Big Noise (1928)
Frozen Justice (1929)
The Iron Mask (1929)
Tide of Empire (1929)
The Far Call (1929)
What a Widow! (1930)
Man to Man (1930)
Wicked (1931)
While Paris Sleeps (1932)
Counsel's Opinion (1933)
Black Sheep (1935)
Navy Wife (1935)
High Tension (1936)
15 Maiden Lane (1936)
One Mile from Heaven (1937)
Heidi (1937)
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)
Suez (1938)
Josette (1938)
The Three Musketeers (1939)
The Gorilla (1939)
Frontier Marshal (1939)
Sailor's Lady (1940)
Young People (1940)
Trail of the Vigilantes (1940)
Look Who's Laughing (1941) also producer
Rise and Shine (1941)
Friendly Enemies (1942)
Around the World (1943) also producer
Up in Mabel's Room (1944)
Abroad with Two Yanks (1944)
Getting Gertie's Garter (1945) also screenwriter
Brewster's Millions (1945)
Rendezvous with Annie (1946)
Driftwood (1947)
Calendar Girl (1947)
Northwest Outpost (1947) also associate producer
The Inside Story (1948)
Angel in Exile (1948) (with Philip Ford)
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Surrender (1950)
Belle Le Grand (1951)
Wild Blue Yonder (1951)
I Dream of Jeanie (1952)
Montana Belle (1952)
Woman They Almost Lynched (1953)
Sweethearts on Parade (1953)
Silver Lode (1954)
Passion (1954)
Cattle Queen of Montana (1954)
Tennessee's Partner (1955)
Pearl of the South Pacific (1955)
Escape to Burma (1955)
Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Hold Back the Night (1956)
The Restless Breed (1957)
The River's Edge (1957)
Enchanted Island (1958)
Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961) |
Allan Dwan | See also | See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood |
Allan Dwan | References | References |
Allan Dwan | Further reading | Further reading
Brownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone By... (1968)
Bogdanovich, Peter, Allan Dwan: The Last Pioneer (1971)
Foster, Charles, Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood (2000)
Lombardi, Frederic, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios (2013)
Print E-book |
Allan Dwan | External links | External links
Allan Dwan profile, virtual-history.com; accessed June 16, 2014
Category:1885 births
Category:1981 deaths
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American screenwriters
Category:Film directors from Los Angeles
Category:Film producers from Los Angeles
Category:American male screenwriters
Category:Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States
Category:Film directors from Toronto
Category:Western (genre) film directors
Category:Screenwriters from Toronto
Category:People from La Mesa, California
Category:Writers from San Diego |
Allan Dwan | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Career, Partial filmography as director, See also, References, Further reading, External links |
Algeria | short description | Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.
Inhabited since prehistory, Algeria has been at the crossroads of numerous cultures and civilisations, including the Phoenicians, Numidians, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantine Greeks. Its modern identity is rooted in centuries of Arab Muslim migration waves since the seventh century and the subsequent Arabisation of the indigenous populations. Following a succession of Islamic Arab and Berber dynasties between the eighth and 15th centuries, the Regency of Algiers was established in 1516 as a largely independent tributary state of the Ottoman Empire. After nearly three centuries as a major power in the Mediterranean, the country was invaded by France in 1830 and formally annexed in 1848, though it was not fully conquered and pacified until 1903. French rule brought mass European settlement that displaced the local population, which was reduced by up to one-third due to warfare, disease, and starvation. The Sétif and Guelma massacre in 1945 catalysed local resistance that culminated in the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. Algeria gained its independence in 1962. The country descended into a bloody civil war from 1992 to 2002.
Spanning , Algeria is the world's tenth-largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa. It has a semi-arid climate, with the Sahara desert dominating most of the territory except for its fertile and mountainous north, where most of the population is concentrated. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 33rd-most populous country in the world. Algeria's official languages are Arabic and Tamazight; French is used in media, education, and certain administrative matters, but it has no official status. The vast majority of the population speak the Algerian dialect of Arabic. Most Algerians are Arabs, with Berbers forming a sizeable minority. Sunni Islam is the official religion and practised by 99 percent of the population.
Algeria is a semi-presidential republic composed of 58 provinces (wilayas) and 1,541 communes. It is a regional power in North Africa and a middle power in global affairs. The country has the second-highest Human Development Index in continental Africa and one of the largest economies in Africa, due mostly to its large petroleum and natural gas reserves, which are the sixteenth and ninth-largest in the world, respectively. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa and a major supplier of natural gas to Europe. The Algerian military is one of the largest in Africa, with the highest defence budget on the continent and among the highest in the world (ranks 22nd globally). Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, the OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member. |
Algeria | Name | Name
alt=Page of typeset book|left|thumb|"Algeria" page in the Civitates Orbis Terrarium of 1575
Different forms of the name Algeria include: , , . The country's full name is officially the People's Democratic Republic of AlgeriaProclamación de la República argelina , Journal officiel de la republique algerienne, 1st year, 1st issue, 1962, páge 5. (; , RADP; Berber Tifinagh: , Berber Latin alphabet: ). |
Algeria | Etymology | Etymology
Algeria's name derives from the city of Algiers, which in turn derives from the Arabic (, 'the islands'), referring to four small islands off its coast, a truncated form of the older (, 'islands of Bani Mazghanna').al-Idrisi, Muhammad (12th century) Nuzhat al-Mushtaq The name was given by Buluggin ibn Ziri after he established the city on the ruins of the Phoenician city of Icosium in 950. It was employed by medieval geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.
Algeria took its name from the Regency of Algeria or Regency of Algiers, when Ottoman rule was established in the central Maghreb in early 16th century. This period saw the installation of a political and administrative organisation which participated in the establishment of the (, 'country of Algiers') and the definition of its borders with its neighboring entities on the east and west. The Ottoman Turks who settled in Algeria referred both to themselves and the peoples as "Algerians". Acting as a central military and political authority in the regency, the Ottoman Turks shaped the modern political identity of Algeria as a state possessing all the attributes of sovereign independence, despite still being nominally subject to the Ottoman sultan. Algerian nationalist, historian and statesman Ahmed Tewfik El Madani regarded the regency as the "first Algerian state" and the "Algerian Ottoman republic". |
Algeria | History | History |
Algeria | Prehistory and ancient history | Prehistory and ancient history
left|thumb|Roman ruins at Djémila
Around ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Stone artifacts and cut-marked bones that were excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit are estimated to be ~1.9 million years old, and even older stone artifacts to be as old as ~2.4 million years. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa, or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa.
Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archaeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).
The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilisation (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa.
thumb|Ancient Roman ruins of Timgad on the street leading to the local Arch of Trajan
From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.
As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilisation was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organisation supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.
thumb|left|Masinissa ( 238–148 BC), first king of Numidia
By the early 4th century BC, The north is divided into two Masaesyli kingdom in west led by Syphax and Massylii kingdom in east. Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.
In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilisation, unequalled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC.
thumb|right| The lands which make up modern-day Algeria were part of Byzantine North Africa (The empire in 555 under Justinian the Great, at its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Roman Empire (vassals in pink))
After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
thumb|upright|Roman inscription from Agueneb in the province of Laghouat
For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Algeria is home to the second-largest number of Roman sites and remains after Italy. Rome, after getting rid of its powerful rival Carthage in the year 146 BC, decided a century later to include Numidia to become the new master of North Africa. They built more than 500 cities. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa. The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on the land, as they were harassed by local tribes. In fact, by the time the Byzantines arrived Leptis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Carthaginians, and Ottomans the Berber people were the only or one of the few in North Africa who remained independent. The Berber people were so resistant that even during the Muslim conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to the establishment of a native Kingdom based in Altava (modern-day Algeria) known as the Mauro-Roman Kingdom. It was succeeded by another Kingdom based in Altava, the Kingdom of Altava. During the reign of Kusaila its territory extended from the region of modern-day Fez in the west to the western Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east.The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live InHugh Kennedy
Hachette UK,Gibraltar: Croisée de mondes : d'Hercule à Boabdil
Zakya Daoud
SéguierThe History of Northern Africa Britannica Educational Publishing
Britannica Educational PublishingMiddle East and Africa: International Dictionary of Historic Places
Trudy Ring, Noelle Watson, Paul Schellinger
RoutledgeHistorical Dictionary of Tunisia
Kenneth J. Perkins
Rowman & LittlefieldIslam, 01 AH-250 AH: A Chronology of Events
Abu Tariq Hijazi
Message Publications, |
Algeria | Middle Ages | Middle Ages
After negligible resistance from the locals, Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Algeria in the early 8th century.
Large numbers of the indigenous Berber people converted to Islam. Christians, Berber and Latin speakers remained in the great majority in Tunisia until the end of the 9th century and Muslims only became a vast majority some time in the 10th.Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman, 2012, pp. 364–365 After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Rustamids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads and the Zayyanids. The Christians left in three waves: after the initial conquest, in the 10th century and the 11th. The last were evacuated to Sicily by the Normans and the few remaining died out in the 14th century.
thumb|left|upright|Fatimid Caliphate, a Shia Ismaili dynasty that ruled much of North Africa, c. 960–1100
thumb|upright|Dihya memorial in Khenchela, Algeria
During the Middle Ages, North Africa was home to many great scholars, saints and sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh, the first grammarian to mention Semitic and Berber languages, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari, and the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen. It was during this time that the Fatimids or children of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, came to the Maghreb. These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, made up primarily of Arabs and Levantines extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors the Zirids seceded. To punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt. In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids, however, were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes, however, remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location and time controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz and Yemen. Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the Islamic Era.
The Berber people historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houara, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions.
Several Amazigh dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarising the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Ifranid, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. Both of the Hammadid and Zirid empires as well as the Fatimids established their rule in all of the Maghreb countries. The Zirids ruled land in what is now Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Spain, Malta and Italy. The Hammadids captured and held important regions such as Ouargla, Constantine, Sfax, Susa, Algiers, Tripoli and Fez establishing their rule in every country in the Maghreb region. The Fatimids which was created and established by the Kutama Berbers conquered all of North Africa as well as Sicily and parts of the Middle East.
thumb|Territories controlled by the Maghrawa
Following the Berber revolt numerous independent states emerged across the Maghreb. In Algeria the Rustamid Kingdom was established. The Rustamid realm stretched from Tafilalt in Morocco to the Nafusa mountains in Libya including south, central and western Tunisia therefore including territory in all of the modern day Maghreb countries, in the south the Rustamid realm expanded to the modern borders of Mali and included territory in Mauritania.The Puffin History of the World: Volume 1 ,
By Roshen DalalRevue africaine: journal des travaux de la Société historique algérienne, Volumes 105–106
Kraus Reprint,Vers la paix en Algérie: les négociations d'Evian dans les archives diplomatiques françaises (15 janvier 1961-29 juin 1962).
Bruylant,
Once extending their control over all of the Maghreb, part of SpainThe Zīrids of Granada Andrew Handler University of Miami Press, 1974 and briefly over Sicily,The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3 – J.D. Fage originating from modern Algeria, the Zirids only controlled modern Ifriqiya by the 11th century. The Zirids recognised nominal suzerainty of the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo. El Mu'izz the Zirid ruler decided to end this recognition and declared his independence. The Zirids also fought against other Zenata Kingdoms, for example the Maghrawa, a Berber dynasty originating from Algeria and which at one point was a dominant power in the Maghreb ruling over much of Morocco and western Algeria including Fez, Sijilmasa, Aghmat, Oujda, most of the Sous and Draa and reaching as far as M'sila and the Zab in Algeria.Histoire de l'Afrique septentrionale (Berbérie) dupuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à la conquête française (1830), Volumes 1–2 Ernest Mercier E. Leroux,In Barbary: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and the Sahara Edward Alexander Powell Century CompanyRoudh El-Kartas: Histoire des souverains du Maghreb (Espagne et Maroc) et annales de la ville de Fès Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī b. ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Abī Zarʻ, ʿAlī Ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Abī-Zarʿ Imprimerie ImperialeLes Berbers dans l'histoire: De la Kahina à l'occupation Turque Mouloud Gaïd Editions Mimouni
As the Fatimid state was at the time too weak to attempt a direct invasion, they found another means of revenge. Between the Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin nomad tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulency. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym for example, who regularly disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot their farms. The then Fatimid vizier decided to destroy what he could not control, and broke a deal with the chiefs of these Bedouin tribes. The Fatimids even gave them money to leave.
Whole tribes set off with women, children, elders, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on the way, especially in Cyrenaica, where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region, arriving 1051. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but with each encounter, the last under the walls of Kairouan, his troops were defeated and the Arabs remained masters of the battlefield. The Arabs usually did not take control over the cities, instead looting them and destroying them.
thumb|Mansourah Mosque, Tlemcen
The invasion kept going, and in 1057 the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they encircled the Qalaa of Banu Hammad (capital of the Hammadid Emirate), as they had done in Kairouan a few decades ago. From there they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains. Some of these territories were forcibly taken back by the Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. The influx of Bedouin tribes was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural Arabisation of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by the Banu Hilal tribes had become completely arid desert.Populations Crises and Population Cycles , Claire Russell and W. M. S. Russell
The Almohads originating from modern day Morocco, although founded by a man originating from modern day Algeria known as Abd al-Mu'min would soon take control over the Maghreb. During the time of the Almohad Dynasty Abd al-Mu'min's tribe, the Koumïa, were the main supporters of the throne and the most important body of the empire.du moyen age Louis Cibrario Libraire de Guillaumin et C.ie Defeating the weakening Almoravid Empire and taking control over Morocco in 1147, they pushed into Algeria in 1152, taking control over Tlemcen, Oran, and Algiers,Jeff Huebner, "Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad (M'sila, Algeria)" in Middle East and Africa: International Dictionary of Historic Places (Vol. 4) (eds. K.A. Berney, Trudy Ring & Noelle Watson: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1996), pp. 36–39. wrestling control from the Hilian Arabs, and by the same year they defeated Hammadids who controlled Eastern Algeria.
Following their decisive defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 the Almohads began collapsing, and in 1235 the governor of modern-day Western Algeria, Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan declared his independence and established the Kingdom of Tlemcen and the Zayyanid dynasty. Warring with the Almohad forces attempting to restore control over Algeria for 13 years, they defeated the Almohads in 1248 after killing their Caliph in a successful ambush near Oujda.Jamil M. Abun-Nasr (20 August 1987). A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press. pp. 103–104
thumb|upright=1.15|The Zayyanid kingdom of Tlemcen in the fifteenth century and its neighbors
The Zayyanids retained their control over Algeria for 3 centuries. Much of the eastern territories of Algeria were under the authority of the Hafsid dynasty, although the Emirate of Bejaia encompassing the Algerian territories of the Hafsids would occasionally be independent from central Tunisian control. At their peak the Zayyanid kingdom included all of Morocco as its vassal to the west and in the east reached as far as Tunis which they captured during the reign of Abu Tashfin.Les états de l'Occident musulman aux XIIIe, XIVe et XVe siècles: institutions gouvernementales et administratives
Atallah Dhina Office des Publications Universitaires,Histoire générale de la Tunisie, Volume 2 Hédi Slim, Ammar Mahjoubi, Khaled Belkhodja, Hichem Djaït, Abdelmajid Ennabli
Sud éditions,Recueil des Notices et Memoires , Volumes 52–53
Société archéologique du département de ConstantineRecueil des Notices et Memoires , Volumes 52–53 Société archéologique du département de ConstantineLa dynastie marocaine des Beni Wattâs (1420–1544) Auguste Cour P. GeuthnerRecueil des notices et mémoires de la Société archéologique du département de Constantine L. Arnolet,
After several conflicts with local Barbary pirates sponsored by the Zayyanid sultans, Spain decided to invade Algeria and defeat the native Kingdom of Tlemcen. In 1505, they invaded and captured Mers el Kébir, and in 1509 after a bloody siege, they conquered Oran.Sánchez Doncel, Gregorio. 1991. Presencia de España en Orán, 1509–1792. Estudio Teológico de San Ildefonso. Following their decisive victories over the Algerians in the western-coastal areas of Algeria, the Spanish decided to get bolder, and invaded more Algerian cities. In 1510, they led a series of sieges and attacks, taking over Bejaia in a large siege, and leading a semi-successful siege against Algiers. They also besieged Tlemcen. In 1511, they took control over Cherchell and Jijel, and attacked Mostaganem where although they were not able to conquer the city, they were able to force a tribute on them. |
Algeria | Early modern era | Early modern era
thumb|upright|left|Hayreddin Barbarossa
In 1516, the Turkish privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards with help from the locals who saw them as liberators from the Christians, but the brothers eventually assassinated the local noble Salim al-Tumi and took control over the city and the surrounding regions. Their state is known as the Regency of Algiers. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force and native Algerians, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792).
The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. He was a Kouloughli or of mixed origins, as his mother was an Algerian Mooresse. Until 1587 Beylerbeylik of Algiers was governed by Beylerbeys who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by an autonomous janissary unit, known in Algeria as the Ojaq who were led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.
Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost between 30,000 and 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and had high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42.left|thumb|Map of the Regency of Algiers in early 19th century
The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis, enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic.
In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under the command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland,"Vísindavefurinn: Hverjir stóðu raunverulega að Tyrkjaráninu?" . Vísindavefurinn. raiding and capturing slaves."Vísindavefurinn: Hvað gerðist í Tyrkjaráninu?" . Vísindavefurinn."Turkish invasion walk" . heimaslod.is.Etravel Travel service. "Turkish Invasion – Visit Westman Islands .com" . visitwestmanislands.com. Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629, pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands."Vísindavefurinn: Voru Tyrkjarán framin í öðrum löndum?" . Vísindavefurinn.
thumb|upright|Baba Ali Chaouch, Dey of Algiers
left|thumb|Algiers, by Niels Simonsen
In 1659, the Janissaries stationed in Algiers, also known commonly as the Odjak of Algiers; and the Reis or the company of corsair captains rebelled, they removed the Ottoman viceroy from power, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of "Agha" then "Dey" in 1671, and the right to select passed to the divan, a council of some sixty military senior officers. Thus Algiers became a sovereign military republic. It was at first dominated by the odjak; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. Although Algiers remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, in reality they acted independently from the rest of the Empire, and often had wars with other Ottoman subjects and territories such as the Beylik of Tunis.
The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system was in place, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of the Deylikal government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylia, although in 1730 the Regency was able to take control over the Kingdom of Kuku in western Kabylia. Many cities in the northern parts of the Algerian desert paid taxes to Algiers or one of its Beys.
Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Empire launched an invasion in 1775, then the Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784. For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples, Portugal and the Knights of Malta. Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, but all these military campaigns were doomed and Spain had to ask for peace in 1786 and paid 1 million pesos to the Dey.
In 1792, Algiers took back Oran and Mers el Kébir, the two last Spanish strongholds in Algeria. In the same year, they conquered the Moroccan Rif and Oujda, which they then abandoned in 1795.Morocco in the Reign of Mawlay Sulayman – Mohamed El Mansour Middle East & North African Studies Press, 1990 – Morocco – 248 pages: Pg 104
thumb|Bombardment of Algiers by the Anglo-Dutch fleet, to support the ultimatum to release European slaves, August 1816
In the 19th century, Algerian pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "license tax" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels.
Attacks by Algerian pirates on American merchantmen resulted in the First and Second Barbary Wars, which ended the attacks on U.S. ships in 1815. A year later, a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, under the command of Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to stop similar attacks on European fishermen. These efforts proved successful, although Algerian piracy would continue until the French conquest in 1830. |
Algeria | French colonisation (1830–1962) | French colonisation (1830–1962)
thumb|Battle of Somah in 1836
Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. According to several historians, the methods used by the French to establish control over Algeria reached genocidal proportions. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830". French losses from 1831 to 1851 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action."Had planning been better (barracks, hospitals, medical services), the drain on men would have been : it has been calculated that between 1831 and 1851, 92,329 died in hospital, and only 3,336 in battle." The Military and Colonial Destruction of the Roman Landscape of North Africa ... – Michael Greenhalgh, p366 In 1872, The Algerian population stood at about 2.9 million. French policy was predicated on "civilising" the country. The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. On 17 September 1860, Napoleon III declared "Our first duty is to take care of the happiness of the three million Arabs, whom the fate of arms has brought under our domination." During this time, only Kabylia resisted, the Kabylians were not colonised until after the Mokrani Revolt in 1871.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and never completed an unpublished essay outlining his ideas for how to transform Algeria from an occupied tributary state to a colonial regime, wherein he advocated for a mixed system of "total domination and total colonisation" whereby French military would wage total war against civilian populations while a colonial administration would provide rule of law and property rights to settlers within French occupied cities.Alexis de Tocqueville, Travels in Algeria, ed. Yusuf Ritter, Tikhanov Library, 2023
thumb|upright|left|Emir Abdelkader, Algerian leader insurgent against French colonial rule, 1865
From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.Albert Habib Hourani, Malise Ruthven (2002). "A history of the Arab peoples". Harvard University Press. p.323.
thumb|The six historical Leaders of the FLN: Rabah Bitat, Mostefa Ben Boulaïd, Mourad Didouche, Mohammed Boudiaf, Krim Belkacem and Larbi Ben M'Hidi.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonised countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture.
During the Second World War, Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch, which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign.
Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status under the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began after the publication of the Declaration of 1 November 1954. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals. In addition, the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps.
The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than the 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians.
The war against French rule concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum. |
Algeria | The first three decades of independence (1962–1991) | The first three decades of independence (1962–1991)
The number of European Pied-Noirs who fled Algeria totaled more than 900,000 between 1962 and 1964. The exodus to mainland France accelerated after the Oran massacre of 1962, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city and began attacking civilians.
thumb|upright=0.65|Houari Boumediene
Algeria's first president was the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumédiène, his former ally and defence minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. However, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialisation drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalised. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.
Boumédienne's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread conventional Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of a return to Orthodox Islam.
The Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Muslim groups. |
Algeria | Civil War (1991–2002) and aftermath | Civil War (1991–2002) and aftermath
thumb|Massacres of over 50 people in 1997–1998. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) claimed responsibility for many of them.
In December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as the Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 people are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres."98 Die in One of Algerian Civil War's Worst Massacres ". The New York Times. 30 August 1997. At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997.
Algeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a "Civil Concord" initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Armed Islamic Group, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government.
Bouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces.
In November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes.
A continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency. The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies. In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform. However, elections are routinely criticised by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.
On 2 April 2019, Bouteflika resigned from the presidency after mass protests against his candidacy for a fifth term in office.
In December 2019, Abdelmadjid Tebboune became Algeria's president, after winning the first round of the presidential election with a record abstention rate – the highest of all presidential elections since Algeria's democracy in 1989. Tebboune is accused of being close to the military and being loyal to the deposed president. Tebboune rejects these accusations, claiming to be the victim of a witch hunt. He also reminds his detractors that he was expelled from the Government in August 2017 at the instigation of oligarchs languishing in prison. In September 2024, President Tebboune won a second term with a landslide 84.3 percent of the vote, although his opponents called the results fraud. |
Algeria | Geography | Geography
thumb|The Sahara, the Hoggar Mountains and the Atlas Mountains compose the Algerian relief.
thumb|The Algerian Desert makes up more than 90% of the country's total area.
Since the 2011 breakup of Sudan, and the creation of South Sudan, Algeria has been the largest country in Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas forms with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat ().
Algeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°N and south of 19°N), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert.
The Hoggar Mountains (), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about south of the capital, Algiers, and just east of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities.
thumb|The Babor mountains and the Jijel Coast. The Erraguene lake can be seen on the right. |
Algeria | Climate and hydrology | Climate and hydrology
thumb|left|Algeria map of Köppen climate classification
In this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.
Rainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as in some years.
Farther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can go up to . |
Algeria | Fauna and flora | Fauna and flora
thumb|left|The fennec fox is the national animal of Algeria.
The varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife.
In Algeria forest cover is around 1% of the total land area, equivalent to 1,949,000 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, up from 1,667,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 1,439,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 510,000 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity) and around 6% of the forest area was found within protected areas. For the year 2015, 80% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 18% private ownership and 2% with ownership listed as other or unknown.
Many of the creatures constituting the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilisation. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a small African leopard and Saharan cheetah population, but these are seldom seen. A species of deer, the Barbary stag, inhabits the dense humid forests in the north-eastern areas. The fennec fox is the national animal of Algeria.
A variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, including the Barbary lions, Atlas bears and crocodiles."Crocodiles in the Sahara Desert: An Update of Distribution, Habitats and Population Status for Conservation Planning in Mauritania ". PLOS ONE. 25 February 2011.
In the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara. Algeria had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.22/10, ranking it 106th globally out of 172 countries.
Camels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with venomous and nonvenomous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects. |
Algeria | Government and politics | Government and politics
left|thumb|upright|Abdelmadjid Tebboune, President of Algeria since 2019
Algeria's government has been described as authoritarian,Muradova Huseynova, L. (2016). Riqueza petrolífera y autoritarismo: Argelia en la Primavera Árabe. Revista Española De Ciencia Política, (40). Retrieved from https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/recp/article/view/39641 and elected politicians have relatively little sway over affairs in the country. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military "décideurs" ("deciders"), known as "le pouvoir" ("the power"), de facto rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man might have been Mohamed Mediène, the head of military intelligence, before he was brought down during the 2019 protests. In recent years, many of these generals have died, retired, or been imprisoned. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, previous president Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that made him re-electable indefinitely, until he was brought down in 2019 during protests.
The head of state is the President of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president is limited to two five-year terms. The most recent presidential election was planned to be in April 2019, but widespread protests erupted on 22 February against the president's decision to participate in the election, which resulted in President Bouteflika announcing his resignation on 3 April. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, an independent candidate, was elected as president after the election eventually took place on 12 December 2019. Protestors refused to recognise Tebboune as president, citing demands for comprehensive reform of the political system. Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age. The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government.Articles: 85, 87, 77, 78 and 79 of the Algerian constitution
thumb|The People's National Assembly
The Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president. According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession, or region". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects.Article 42 of the Algerian constitution –
Parliamentary elections were last held in June 2021. In the elections, the FLN lost 66 of its seats, but remained the largest party with 98 seats. Other parties included the Movement of the Society for Peace which won 65 seats, the National Rally for Democracy which won 58 seats, the Future Front which won 48 seats, and the National Construction Movement which won 39 seats. |
Algeria | Foreign relations | Foreign relations
thumb|President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and George W. Bush exchange handshakes at the Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa in Tōyako Town, Abuta District, Hokkaidō in 2008. With them are Dmitriy Medvedev, left, and Yasuo Fukuda, right.
Algeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer.
Giving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.
In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria. Defence Minister Hervé Morin stated that "It's time for our country to be at peace with itself, at peace thanks to a system of compensation and reparations", when presenting the draft law on the payouts. Algerian officials and activists believe that this is a good first step and hope that this move would encourage broader reparation.
Tensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight. On 24 August 2021, Algeria announced the break of diplomatic relations with Morocco. |
Algeria | Military | Military
thumb|A Djebel Chenoua-class corvette, designed and assembled in Algeria
The military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defence Forces. It is the direct successor of the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).
Total military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate). Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 12 months."Loi 14-06 relative au service national", JORADP 48, August, 10th 2014 The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Algeria has the second-largest military in North Africa with the largest defence budget in Africa ($10 billion). Most of Algeria's weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally.
In 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria.
Algeria is the 90th most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index. |
Algeria | Human rights | Human rights
Algeria has been categorised by the US government funded Freedom House as "not free" since it began publishing such ratings in 1972, with the exception of 1989, 1990, and 1991, when the country was labelled "partly free". In December 2016, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor issued a report regarding violation of media freedom in Algeria. It clarified that the Algerian government imposed restrictions on freedom of the press; expression; and right to peaceful demonstration, protest and assembly as well as intensified censorship of the media and websites. Due to the fact that the journalists and activists criticise the ruling government, some media organisations' licenses are cancelled.
Independent and autonomous trade unions face routine harassment from the government, with many leaders imprisoned and protests suppressed. In 2016, a number of unions, many of which were involved in the 2010–2012 Algerian Protests, have been deregistered by the government.
Homosexuality is illegal in Algeria. Public homosexual behavior is punishable by up to two years in prison. Despite this, about 26% of Algerians think that homosexuality should be accepted, according to the survey conducted by the BBC News Arabic-Arab Barometer in 2019. Algeria showed the highest LGBT acceptance compared to other Arab countries where the survey was conducted.
Human Rights Watch has accused the Algerian authorities of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent pro-democracy movements and protests in the country, leading to the arrest of youths as part of social distancing. |
Algeria | Administrative divisions | Administrative divisions
Algeria is divided into 58 provinces (wilayas), 553 districts (daïras) and 1,541 municipalities (baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city.
The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are: |
Algeria | Economy | Economy
upright=1.35|thumb|right|GDP per capita development in Algeria
Algeria's currency is the dinar (DZD). The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In June 2024 The World Bank's 2024 report marks a turning point for Algeria, which joins the select club of upper-middle-income countries. This economic rise, the result of an ambitious development strategy, places the country in the same category as emerging powers such as China, Brazil and Turkey In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatisation of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy. These restrictions are just starting to be lifted off recently although questions about Algeria's slowly-diversifying economy remain.
Algeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages. The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities among regions.
A wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past five years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development.
thumb|Street market in Algeria
Thanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilisation fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP. The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues.
Algeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations but is a member of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, the African Continental Free Trade Area, and has an association agreement with the European Union.
Turkish direct investments have accelerated in Algeria, with total value reaching $5 billion. As of 2022, the number of Turkish companies present in Algeria has reached 1,400. In 2020, despite the pandemic, more than 130 Turkish companies were created in Algeria. |
Algeria | Oil and natural resources | Oil and natural resources
thumb|Pipelines across Algeria
Algeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe. Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and 87.7% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had of proven natural gas reserves. It also ranks 16th in oil reserves.
Non-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position.
Income from oil and gas rose in 2011 as a result of continuing high oil prices, though the trend in production volume is downward. Production from the oil and gas sector in terms of volume continues to decline, dropping from 43.2 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes between 2007 and 2011. Nevertheless, the sector accounted for 98% of the total volume of exports in 2011, against 48% in 1962, and 70% of budgetary receipts, or US$71.4 billion.
The Algerian national oil company is Sonatrach, which plays a key role in all aspects of the oil and natural gas sectors in Algeria. All foreign operators must work in partnership with Sonatrach, which usually has majority ownership in production-sharing agreements.
Access to biocapacity in Algeria is lower than world average. In 2016, Algeria had 0.53 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Algeria used 2.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use just under 4.5 times as much biocapacity as Algeria contains. As a result, Algeria is running a biocapacity deficit. In April 2022, diplomats from Italy and Spain held talks after Rome's move to secure large volume of Algerian gas stoked concerns in Madrid. Under the deal between Algeria's Sonatrach and Italy's Eni, Algeria will send an additional 9 billion cubic metres of gas to Italy by next year and in 2024. |
Algeria | Research and alternative energy sources | Research and alternative energy sources
Algeria has invested an estimated 100 billion dinars towards developing research facilities and paying researchers. This development programme is meant to advance alternative energy production, especially solar and wind power. Algeria is estimated to have the largest solar energy potential in the Mediterranean, so the government has funded the creation of a solar science park in Hassi R'Mel. Currently, Algeria has 20,000 research professors at various universities and over 780 research labs, with state-set goals to expand to 1,000. Besides solar energy, areas of research in Algeria include space and satellite telecommunications, nuclear power and medical research. |
Algeria | Labour market | Labour market
The overall rate of unemployment was 11.8% in 2023. The government strengthened in 2011 the job programmes introduced in 1988, in particular in the framework of the programme to aid those seeking work (Dispositif d'Aide à l'Insertion Professionnelle).
Despite a decline in total unemployment, youth and women unemployment is high. |
Algeria | Tourism | Tourism
thumb|Djanet
The development of the tourism sector in Algeria had previously been hampered by a lack of facilities, but since 2004 a broad tourism development strategy has been implemented resulting in many hotels of a high modern standard being built.
There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria which includes Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town;Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanised oasis; and the Casbah of Algiers, an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Site in Algeria is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range. |
Algeria | Transport | Transport
thumb|The main highway connecting the Moroccan to the Tunisian border was a part of the Cairo–Dakar Highway project.
Two trans-African automobile routes pass through Algeria:
Cairo-Dakar Highway
Algiers-Lagos Highway
The Algerian road network is the densest in Africa; its length is estimated at of highways, with more than 3,756 structures and a paving rate of 85%. This network will be complemented by the East-West Highway, a major infrastructure project currently under construction. It is a three-way, highway, linking Annaba in the extreme east to the Tlemcen in the far west. Algeria is also crossed by the Trans-Sahara Highway, which is now completely paved. This road is supported by the Algerian government to increase trade between the six countries crossed: Algeria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Tunisia. |
Algeria | Demographics | Demographics
Algeria has a population of an estimated 45.6 million, of which the majority, 75% to 85% are ethnically Arab. At the outset of the 20th century, its population was approximately 4 million. About 90% of Algerians live in the northern, coastal area; the inhabitants of the Sahara desert are mainly concentrated in oases, although some 1.5 million remain nomadic or partly nomadic. 28.1% of Algerians are under the age of 15.
Between 90,000 and 165,000 Sahrawis from Western Sahara live in the Sahrawi refugee camps, in the western Algerian Sahara desert. There are also more than 4,000 Palestinian refugees, who are well integrated and have not asked for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 2009, 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria.
The largest concentration of Algerian migrants outside Algeria is in France, which has reportedly over 1.7 million Algerians of up to the second generation. |
Algeria | Ethnic groups | Ethnic groups
left|thumb|Some of Algeria's traditional clothes
Arabs and indigenous Berbers as well as Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantine Greeks, Turks, various Sub-Saharan Africans, and French have contributed to the history and culture of Algeria. Descendants of Andalusi refugees are also present in the population of Algiers and other cities. Moreover, Spanish was spoken by these Aragonese and Castillian Morisco descendants deep into the 18th century, and even Catalan was spoken at the same time by Catalan Morisco descendants in the small town of Grish El-Oued.
Centuries of Arab migrations to the Maghreb since the seventh century shifted the demographic scope in Algeria. Estimates vary based on different sources. The majority of the population of Algeria is ethnically Arab, constituting between 75% and 80% to 85% of the population. Berbers who make up between 15% and 20% to 24% of the population are divided into many groups with varying languages. The largest of these are the Kabyles, who live in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, the Chaoui of Northeast Algeria, the Tuaregs in the southern desert and the Shenwa people of North Algeria.
During the colonial period, there was a large (10% in 1960) European population who became known as Pied-Noirs. They were primarily of French, Spanish and Italian origin. Almost all of this population left during the war of independence or immediately after its end. |
Algeria | Languages | Languages
Modern Standard Arabic and Berber are the official languages. Algerian Arabic (Darja) is the language used by the majority of the population. Colloquial Algerian Arabic has some Berber loanwords which represent 8% to 9% of its vocabulary.thumb|Signs in the University of Tizi Ouzou in three languages: Arabic, Berber, and French
Berber has been recognised as a "national language" by the constitutional amendment of 8 May 2002. Kabyle, the predominant Berber language, is taught and is partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie. Kabyle has a significant Arabic, French, Latin, Greek, Phoenician and Punic substratum, and Arabic loanwords represent 35% of the total Kabyle vocabulary. In February 2016, the Algerian constitution passed a resolution that made Berber an official language alongside Arabic. Algeria emerged as a bilingual state after 1962. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is spoken by about 83% of the population and Berber by 27%.
Although French has no official status in Algeria, it has one of the largest Francophone populations in the world, () "L'Algérie, non-membre de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, comptabilise la seconde communauté francophone au monde, avec environ 16 millions de locuteurs, suivie par la Côte d'Ivoire avec près de 12 millions de locuteurs francophones, le Québec avec 6 millions et la Belgique avec plus de 4 millions de francophones." and French is widely used in government, media (newspapers, radio, local television), and both the education system (from primary school onwards) and academia due to Algeria's colonial history. It can be regarded as a lingua franca of Algeria. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians could read and write in French. () p. 9 "Nous y agrégeons néanmoins quelques données disponibles pour des pays n'appartenant pas à l'OIF mais dont nous savons, comme pour l'Algérie (11,2 millions en 20081)," and "1. Nombre de personnes âgées de cinq ans et plus déclarant savoir lire et écrire le français, d'après les données du recensement de 2008 communiquées par l'Office national des statistiques d'Algérie." In 2013, it was estimated that 60% of the population could speak or understand French. In 2022, it was estimated that 33% of the population was Francophone.
The use of English in Algeria, though limited in comparison to the previously mentioned languages, has increased due to globalisation. In 2022 it was announced that English would be taught in elementary schools. |
Algeria | Religion | Religion
thumb|right|Hassan Pasha Mosque in Oran
Islam is the predominant religion in Algeria, with its adherents, mostly Sunnis, accounting for 99% of the population according to a 2021 CIA World Factbook estimate, and 97.9% according to Pew Research in 2020. There are about 290,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia.
Prior to independence, Algeria was home to more than 1.3 million Christians (mostly of European ancestry). Most of the Christian settlers left to France after the country's independence.De Azevedo, Raimondo Cagiano (1994) Migration and development co-operation. . Council of Europe. p. 25. . Today, estimates of the Christian population range from 100,000 to 200,000. Algerian citizens who are Christians predominantly belong to Protestant denominations, which have seen increased pressure from the government in recent years including many forced closures.
According to the Arab Barometer in 2018–2019, the vast majority of Algerians (99.1%) continue to identify as Muslim. The June 2019 Arab Barometer-BBC News report found that the percentage of Algerians identifying as non-religious has grown from around 8% in 2013 to around 15% in 2018. The Arab Barometer December 2019, found that the growth in the percentage of Algerians identifying as non-religious is largely driven by young Algerians, with roughly 25% describing themselves as non-religious. However, the 2021 Arab Barometer report found that those who said they were not religious among Algerians has decreased, with just 2.6% identifying as non-religious. In that same report, 69.5% of Algerians identified as religious and another 27.8% identifying as somewhat religious.
Algeria has given the Muslim world a number of prominent thinkers, including Emir Abdelkader, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mouloud Kacem Naît Belkacem, Malek Bennabi and Mohamed Arkoun. |
Algeria | Health | Health
In 2018, Algeria had the highest numbers of physicians in the Maghreb region (1.72 per 1,000 people), nurses (2.23 per 1,000 people), and dentists (0.31 per 1,000 people). Access to "improved water sources" was around 97.4% of the population in urban areas and 98.7% of the population in the rural areas. Some 99% of Algerians living in urban areas, and around 93.4% of those living in rural areas, had access to "improved sanitation". According to the World Bank, Algeria is making progress towards its goal of "reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to improved drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015". Given Algeria's young population, policy favours preventive health care and clinics over hospitals. In keeping with this policy, the government maintains an immunisation programme. However, poor sanitation and unclean water still cause tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles, typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. The poor generally receive healthcare free of charge.
Health records have been maintained in Algeria since 1882 and began adding Muslims living in the south to their vital record database in 1905 during French rule. |
Algeria | Education | Education
thumb|UIS literacy rate Algeria population plus 15 1985–2015
Since the 1970s, in a centralised system that was designed to significantly reduce the rate of illiteracy, the Algerian government introduced a decree by which school attendance became compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years who have the ability to track their learning through the 20 facilities built since independence, now the literacy rate is around 92.6%. Since 1972, Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. The students can also learn English, Italian, Spanish and German. In 2008, new programmes at the elementary appeared, therefore the compulsory schooling does not start at the age of six anymore, but at the age of five. Apart from the 122 private schools, the Universities of the State are free of charge. After nine years of primary school, students can go to a high school or to an educational institution. The school offers two programmes: general or technical. At the end of the third year of secondary school, students pass the exam of the baccalaureate, which allows once it is successful to pursue graduate studies in universities and institutes.
thumb|Students at the University of Chlef in Algeria
Education is officially compulsory for children between the ages of six and 15. In 2008, the illiteracy rate for people over 10 was 22.3%, 15.6% for men and 29.0% for women. The province with the lowest rate of illiteracy was Algiers Province at 11.6%, while the province with the highest rate was Djelfa Province at 35.5%.
Algeria has 26 universities and 67 institutions of higher education, which must accommodate a million Algerians and 80,000 foreign students in 2008. The University of Algiers, founded in 1879, is the oldest, it offers education in various disciplines (law, medicine, science and letters). Twenty-five of these universities and almost all of the institutions of higher education were founded after the independence of the country.
Even if some of them offer instruction in Arabic like areas of law and the economy, most of the other sectors such as science and medicine continue to be provided in French and English. Among the most important universities, there are the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, the University of Mentouri Constantine, and University of Oran Es-Senia. The University of Abou Bekr Belkaïd in Tlemcen and University of Batna Hadj Lakhdar occupy the 26th and 45th row in Africa. Algeria was ranked 115th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024. |
Algeria | Culture | Culture
thumb|Algerian musicians in Tlemcen, Regency of Algiers; by Bachir Yellès
Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic, Tamazight and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine and Ahlam Mosteghanemi while Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.
Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on decolonisation; Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras); and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.
Contemporary Algerian cinema is varied in terms of genre, exploring a wider range of themes and issues. There has been a transition from cinema which focused on the war of independence to films more concerned with the everyday lives of Algerians. |
Algeria | Media | Media |
Algeria | Art | Art
thumb|upright=0.65|left|Mohammed Racim; founder of the Algerian school for painting
Algerian painters, like Mohammed Racim and Baya, attempted to revive the prestigious Algerian past prior to French colonisation, at the same time that they have contributed to the preservation of the authentic values of Algeria. In this line, Mohamed Temam, Abdelkhader Houamel have also returned through this art, scenes from the history of the country, the habits and customs of the past and the country life. Other new artistic currents including the one of M'hamed Issiakhem, Mohammed Khadda and Bachir Yelles, appeared on the scene of Algerian painting, abandoning figurative classical painting to find new pictorial ways, to adapt Algerian paintings to the new realities of the country through its struggle and its aspirations. Mohammed Khadda and M'hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years. |
Algeria | Literature | Literature
The historic roots of Algerian literature go back to the Numidian and Roman African era, when Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. This period had also known Augustine of Hippo, Nonius Marcellus and Martianus Capella, among many others. The Middle Ages have known many Arabic writers who revolutionised the Arab world literature, with authors like Ahmad al-Buni, Ibn Manzur and Ibn Khaldoun, who wrote the Muqaddimah while staying in Algeria, and many others.
Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French Pied-Noir author. In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Today Algeria contains, in its literary landscape, big names having not only marked the Algerian literature, but also the universal literary heritage in Arabic and French.
As a first step, Algerian literature was marked by works whose main concern was the assertion of the Algerian national entity, there is the publication of novels as the Algerian trilogy of Mohammed Dib, or even Nedjma of Kateb Yacine novel which is often regarded as a monumental and major work. Other known writers will contribute to the emergence of Algerian literature whom include Mouloud Feraoun, Malek Bennabi, Malek Haddad, Moufdi Zakaria, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mohamed Laïd Al-Khalifa, Mouloud Mammeri, Frantz Fanon, and Assia Djebar.
thumb|upright|right|Ahlam Mosteghanemi, the most widely read female writer in the Arab world
In the aftermath of the independence, several new authors emerged on the Algerian literary scene, they will attempt through their works to expose a number of social problems, among them there are Rachid Boudjedra, Rachid Mimouni, Leila Sebbar, Tahar Djaout and Tahir Wattar.
Currently, a part of Algerian writers tends to be defined in a literature of shocking expression, due to the terrorism that occurred during the 1990s, the other party is defined in a different style of literature who staged an individualistic conception of the human adventure. Among the most noted recent works, there is the writer, the swallows of Kabul and the attack of Yasmina Khadra, the oath of barbarians of Boualem Sansal, memory of the flesh of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and the last novel by Assia Djebar nowhere in my father's House. |
Algeria | Cinema | Cinema
thumb|Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Arabic cinema
The Algerian state's interest in film-industry activities can be seen in the annual budget of DZD 200 million (EUR 1.3 million) allocated to production, specific measures and an ambitious programme plan implemented by the Ministry of Culture to promote national production, renovate the cinema stock and remedy the weak links in distribution and exploitation.
The financial support provided by the state, through the Fund for the Development of the Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (FDATIC) and the Algerian Agency for Cultural Influence (AARC), plays a key role in the promotion of national production. Between 2007 and 2013, FDATIC subsidised 98 films (feature films, documentaries and short films). In mid-2013, AARC had already supported a total of 78 films, including 42 feature films, 6 short films and 30 documentaries.
According to the European Audiovisual Observatory's LUMIERE database, 41 Algerian films were distributed in Europe between 1996 and 2013; 21 films in this repertoire were Algerian-French co-productions. Days of Glory (2006) and Outside the Law (2010) recorded the highest number of admissions in the European Union, 3,172,612 and 474,722, respectively.Ali, Sahar (25 March 2014) ALGÉRIE . European Audiovisual Observatory
Algeria won the for Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975), two Oscars for Z (1969), and other awards for the Italian-Algerian movie The Battle of Algiers. |
Algeria | Cuisine | Cuisine
thumb|upright=0.7| Couscous, the national dish of Algeria
Algerian cuisine is rich and diverse as a result of interactions and exchanges with other cultures and nations over the centuries. It is based on both land and sea products. Conquests or demographic movement towards the Algerian territory were two of the main factors of exchanges between the different peoples and cultures. The Algerian cuisine is a mix of Arab, Berber, Turkish and French roots.
Algerian cuisine offers a variety of dishes depending on the region and the season, but vegetables and cereals remain at its core. Most of the Algerian dishes are centered around bread, meats (lamb, beef or poultry), olive oil, vegetables, and fresh herbs. Vegetables are often used for salads, soups, tajines, couscous, and sauce-based dishes. Of all the Algerian traditional dishes available, the most famous one is couscous, recognized as a national dish. |
Algeria | Sports | Sports
thumb|The Algeria national football team
Various games have existed in Algeria since antiquity. In the Aures, people played several games such as El Kherba or El khergueba (chess variant). Playing cards, checkers and chess games are part of Algerian culture. Racing (fantasia) and rifle shooting are part of cultural recreation of the Algerians.
Football is the most popular sport in the country. The Algerian national football team, known as the Desert Foxes, has a strong fan base and has achieved success both domestically and internationally.
Algeria has a long history in other sports such as athletics, boxing, volleyball, handball and the study of martial arts. Algerian athletes have competed in the Olympic Games and have won medals in various events. Many sports clubs and organisations exist in Algeria to promote and develop sports among young people. The Ministry of Youth and Sports in Algeria manages sport-related activities. |
Algeria | See also | See also
Index of Algeria-related articles
Outline of Algeria |
Algeria | Explanatory notes | Explanatory notes |
Algeria | Citations | Citations |
Algeria | General bibliography | General bibliography
Ageron, Charles-Robert (1991). Modern Algeria – A History from 1830 to the Present. Translated from French and edited by Michael Brett. London: Hurst. .
Aghrout, Ahmed; Bougherira, Redha M. (2004). Algeria in Transition – Reforms and Development Prospects. Routledge. .
Bennoune, Mahfoud (1988). The Making of Contemporary Algeria – Colonial Upheavals and Post-Independence Development, 1830–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Christelow, Allan (1985) Muslim Law Courts and the French Colonial State in Algeria. Princeton University Press.
Fanon, Frantz (1966; 2005 paperback). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. ASIN B0007FW4AW, .
Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. Viking Adult. , (2006 reprint)
Laouisset, Djamel (2009). A Retrospective Study of the Algerian Iron and Steel Industry. New York City: Nova Publishers. .
Roberts, Hugh (2003). The Battlefield – Algeria, 1988–2002. Studies in a Broken Polity. London: Verso Books. .
Ruedy, John (1992). Modern Algeria – The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. .
Stora, Benjamin (2001). Algeria, 1830–2000 – A Short History. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. .
Sidaoui, Riadh (2009). "Islamic Politics and the Military – Algeria 1962–2008". Religion and Politics – Islam and Muslim Civilisation. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. . |
Algeria | External links | External links
Key Development Forecasts for Algeria from International Futures |
Algeria | Government | Government
Public Services – gateway to government sites
El Mouradia Palace – official website of the president of Algeria
Statistics – official website of National Office of Statistics |
Algeria | History | History
"History" – Algerian history at Ministry of Foreign Affairs |
Algeria | Tourism | Tourism
Visit Algeria – Algeria's official tourism portal |
Algeria | Maps | Maps
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Algeria | Table of Content | short description, Name, Etymology, History, Prehistory and ancient history, Middle Ages, Early modern era, French colonisation (1830–1962), The first three decades of independence (1962–1991), Civil War (1991–2002) and aftermath, Geography, Climate and hydrology, Fauna and flora, Government and politics, Foreign relations, Military, Human rights, Administrative divisions, Economy, Oil and natural resources, Research and alternative energy sources, Labour market, Tourism, Transport, Demographics, Ethnic groups, Languages, Religion, Health, Education, Culture, Media, Art, Literature, Cinema, Cuisine, Sports, See also, Explanatory notes, Citations, General bibliography, External links, Government, History, Tourism, Maps |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Short description | This is a list of characters in Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Major characters | Major characters
The following are major characters from the novel. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Protagonists | Protagonists |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Dagny Taggart | Dagny Taggart
Dagny Taggart is the protagonist of the novel. She is vice president in charge of operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. Given James' incompetence, Dagny is responsible for all the workings of the railroad. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Francisco d'Anconia | Francisco d'Anconia
Francisco d'Anconia is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged, an owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining operation. He is a childhood friend, and the first love, of Dagny Taggart. A child prodigy of exceptional talents, Francisco was dubbed the "climax" of the d'Anconia line, an already prestigious Argentine family of skilled industrialists. He was a classmate of John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld and student of both Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. He began working while still in school to show that he could have been successful without the aid of his family's wealth. Later, Francisco bankrupts the d'Anconia business to put it out of others' reach. His full name is given as "Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia".Milgram, Shoshana. "The Spirit of Francisco d'Anconia: The Development of His Characterization". In . |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | John Galt | John Galt
John Galt is the primary male hero of Atlas Shrugged. He initially appears as an unnamed menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental, who often dines with Eddie Willers in the employees' cafeteria, and leads Eddie to reveal important information about Dagny Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental. Only Eddie's side of their conversations is given in the novel. Later in the novel, the reader discovers this worker's true identity.
Before working for Taggart Transcontinental, Galt worked as an engineer for the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he secretly invented a generator of usable electric energy from ambient static electricity, but abandoned his prototype, and his employment, when dissatisfied by an easily corrupted novel system of payment. This prototype was found by Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. Galt himself remains concealed throughout much of the novel, working a job and living by himself, where he unites the most skillful inventors and business leaders under his leadership. He delivers a lengthy broadcast speech that presents the author's philosophy of Objectivism.Ghate, Onkhar. "The Role of Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged". In . |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Henry "Hank" Rearden | Henry "Hank" Rearden
Henry (known as "Hank") Rearden is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged. He owns the most important steel company in the United States, and invents Rearden Metal, an alloy stronger, lighter, cheaper and tougher than steel. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Lillian, his brother Philip, and his elderly mother. Rearden represents a type of self-made man and eventually divorces Lillian, abandons his steel mills following a bloody assault by government-planted workers, and joins John Galt's strike. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Eddie Willers | Eddie Willers
Edwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the vice-president in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. His father and grandfather worked for the Taggarts, and himself likewise. He is completely loyal to Dagny and to Taggart Transcontinental. Willers does not possess the creative ability of Galt's associates, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. After Dagny shifts her attention and loyalty to saving the captive Galt, Willers maintains the railroad until its collapse.Campbell. Robert L. "When the Train Left the Station, with Two Lights on Behind: The Eddie Willers Story". In . |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Ragnar Danneskjöld | Ragnar Danneskjöld
One of Galt's first followers, and world-famous as a pirate, who seizes relief ships sent from the United States to the People's States of Europe. He works to ensure that once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they have enough capital to rebuild the world. Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjöld makes a personal appearance to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation, and gives him a bar of gold as compensation for the income taxes he has paid over the last several years. Danneskjöld is married to the actress Kay Ludlow; their relationship is kept hidden from the outside world, which only knows of Ludlow as a retired film star. Considered a misfit by Galt's other adherents, he views his actions as a means to speed the world along in understanding Galt's perspective.
According to Barbara Branden, who was closely associated with Rand at the time the book was written, there were sections written describing Danneskjöld's adventures at sea, cut from the final published text. In a 1974 comment at a lecture, Rand said that Danneskjöld's name was a tribute to Victor Hugo's novel Hans of Iceland, wherein the hero becomes the first of the Counts of Danneskjöld. In the published book, Danneskjöld is always seen through the eyes of others (Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden), except for a brief paragraph in the very last chapter. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Antagonists | Antagonists |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | James Taggart | James Taggart
The President of Taggart Transcontinental and the book's most important antagonist. Taggart is an expert influence peddler but incapable of making operational decisions on his own. He relies on his sister, Dagny Taggart, to actually run the railroad, but nonetheless opposes her in almost every endeavor because of his various anti-capitalist moral and political beliefs. In a sense, he is the antithesis of Dagny. This contradiction leads to the recurring absurdity of his life: the desire to overcome those on whom his life depends, and the horror that he will succeed at this. In the final chapters of the novel, he suffers a complete mental breakdown upon realizing that he can no longer deceive himself in this respect. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Lillian Rearden | Lillian Rearden
The unsupportive wife of Hank Rearden, who dislikes his habits and (secretly at first) seeks to ruin Rearden to prove her own value. Lillian achieves this, when she passes information to James Taggart about her husband's affair with his sister. This information is used to blackmail Rearden to sign a Gift Certificate which delivers all the property rights of Rearden Metal to others. Lillian thereafter uses James Taggart for sexual satisfaction, until Hank abandons her. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Dr. Floyd Ferris | Dr. Floyd Ferris
Ferris is a biologist who works as "co-ordinator" at the State Science Institute. He uses his position there to deride reason and productive achievement, and publishes a book entitled Why Do You Think You Think? He clashes on several occasions with Hank Rearden, and twice attempts to blackmail Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal. He is also one of the group of looters who tries to get Rearden to agree to the Steel Unification Plan. Ferris hosts the demonstration of the Project X weapon, and is the creator of the Ferris Persuader, a torture machine. When John Galt is captured by the looters, Ferris uses the device on Galt, but it breaks down before extracting the information Ferris wants from Galt. Ferris represents the group which uses brute force on the heroes to achieve the ends of the looters. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Dr. Robert Stadler | Dr. Robert Stadler
A former professor at Patrick Henry University, and along with colleague Hugh Akston, mentor to Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He has since become a sell-out, one who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He works at the State Science Institute where all his inventions are perverted for use by the military, including a sound-based weapon known as Project X (Xylophone). He is killed when Cuffy Meigs (see below) drunkenly overloads the circuits of Project X, causing it to destroy itself and every structure and living thing in a 100-mile radius. The character was, in part, modeled on J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom Rand had interviewed for an earlier project, and his part in the creation of nuclear weapons. To his former student Galt, Stadler represents the epitome of human evil, as the "man who knew better" but chose not to act for the good. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Wesley Mouch | Wesley Mouch
The incompetent and treacherous lobbyist whom Hank Rearden reluctantly employs in Washington, who rises to prominence and authority throughout the novel through trading favours and disloyalty. In return for betraying Hank by helping broker the Equalization of Opportunity Bill (which, by restricting the number of businesses each person may own to one, forces Hank to divest most of his companies), he is given a senior position at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. Later in the novel he becomes its Top Co-ordinator, a position that eventually becomes Economic Dictator of the country. Mouch's mantra, whenever a problem arises from his prior policy, is to say, "I can't help it. I need wider powers." |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Secondary characters | Secondary characters
The following secondary characters also appear in the novel.
Hugh Akston is identified as "one of the last great advocates of reason." He was a renowned philosopher and the head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University, where he taught Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He was, along with Robert Stadler, a father figure to these three. Akston's name is so hallowed that a young lady, on hearing that Francisco had studied under him, is shocked. She thought that he must have been one of those great names from an earlier century. He now works as a cook in a roadside diner and proves extremely skillful at the job. When Dagny tracks him down, and before she discovers his true identity, he rejects her enthusiastic offer to manage the dining car services for Taggart Transcontinental. He is based on Aristotle.Schoolland, Ken & Havashi, Stuart K. "Hugh Akston, the Role of Teaching, and the Lessons of Atlas Shrugged". In .
Jeff Allen is a tramp who stows away on a Taggart train during one of Dagny's cross-country trips. Instead of throwing him out, she allows him to ride as her guest. It is from Allen that she learns the full story behind the collapse of the Twentieth Century Motor Company (Rand's extensive metaphor for the inherent flaws of communism) as well as a hint of John Galt's true background.
Calvin Atwood is owner of Atwood Light and Power Company and joins Galt's strike.
Mayor Bascom is the mayor of Rome, Wisconsin, who reveals part of the history of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.
Dr. Blodgett is the scientist who pulls the lever to demonstrate Project X.
Orren Boyle is the head of Associated Steel, the antithesis of Hank Rearden, and a friend of James Taggart. He is an investor in the San Sebastián mines. He disappears from the story after having a nervous breakdown following the failed "unification" of the steel industry.
Laura Bradford is an actress and Kip Chalmers's mistress. She is one of the passengers on his train who dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
Bill Brent is the chief dispatcher for the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental who tries to prevent the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
Cherryl Brooks is a dime-store shopgirl who marries James Taggart after a chance encounter in her store the night the John Galt Line was falsely deemed his greatest success. She marries him, thinking that he is the heroic person behind Taggart Transcontinental. Cherryl is at first harsh towards Dagny, having believed Jim Taggart's descriptions of his sister, until she questions employees of the railroad. Upon learning that her scorn had been misdirected, Cherryl puts off apologizing to Dagny out of shame but eventually admits to Dagny that when she married Jim, she thought that he had the heroic qualities that she had looked up to—she thought that she was marrying someone like Dagny. Shortly after making this admission, she learns of Jim's infidelity with Lillian Rearden. Jim slaps her in their ensuing verbal fight. She commits suicide by jumping over a stone parapet and into the river, unable to live with her evil husband and seeing no way to escape him and the unsympathetic world that is at odds with her worldview."The Destruction from the Nihilism Train: The Cheryl Brooks Story". In
Emma Chalmers, Kip Chalmers's mother, gains some influence after his death. Known as "Kip's Ma," she starts a soybean-growing project in Louisiana and commandeers thousands of railroad freight cars to move the harvest. As a result, the year's wheat crop from Minnesota never reaches the rest of the country but instead rots in storage; also, the soybean crop is lost, having been reaped too early.
Kip Chalmers is a Washington man who has decided to run for election as legislator from California. On the way to a campaign rally, the Taggart Transcontinental train that is carrying him encounters a split rail, resulting in the destruction of its diesel engine. In response to his demands, a coal-burning steam engine replaces his train's diesel engine and pulls it through an eight-mile tunnel that has insufficient ventilation. The result is the suffocation of all passengers and the destruction of the tunnel, caused when a train hauling military ordnance crashes into Chalmers's train and explodes.
Tom Colby is the head of the Rearden Steel Workers Union.
Dan Conway is the middle-aged president of the Phoenix-Durango railroad. Running a railroad is just about the only thing he knows. When the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule is used to drive his business out of Colorado, he loses the will to fight, and resigns himself to a quiet life of books and fishing. He is not one of those who joined John Galt's strike, his resignation being a personal choice of his own.
Ken Danagger owns Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania. He helps Hank Rearden illegally make Rearden Metal, then later decides to quit and join Galt's strike moments before Dagny arrives to try to persuade him otherwise.
Quentin Daniels is an enterprising engineer hired by Dagny Taggart to reconstruct John Galt's motor. Partway through this process, Quentin withdraws his effort for the same reasons John Galt himself had. Dagny's pursuit of Quentin leads her to Galt's Gulch. Galt recognizes in him a younger version of himself, having emulated both Galt's achievements in physics and Galt's social reasoning.
Balph Eubank is called "the literary leader of the age" despite the fact that no book he has written has sold more than 3,000 copies. He complains that it is disgraceful that artists are treated as peddlers. He advocates a law limiting the sales of books to 10,000 copies. He is a misogynist who thinks it disgusting that Dagny Taggart is a railroad vice-president.
The Fishwife is one of the strikers, who earns her living by providing the fish for Hammond's grocery market; she is described as having "dark, disheveled hair and large eyes" and is a writer. Galt says she "wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind." This character represents Rand herself; it is her cameo appearance in her own novel.
Richard Halley is Dagny Taggart's favorite composer. He mysteriously disappeared after the evening of his greatest triumph. Halley spent years as a struggling and unappreciated composer. At age 24, his opera Phaethon was performed for the first time, to an audience who booed and heckled it. After 19 years, Phaethon was performed again, but this time it was received to the greatest ovation the opera house had ever heard. The following day, Halley retired, sold the rights to his music, and disappeared. It is later revealed that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.
Lawrence Hammond runs Hammond Cars in Colorado, one of the few companies in existence that still produces top-quality vehicles. He eventually quits and joins the strike.
Mrs. William Hastings is the widow of the chief engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her husband quit shortly after Galt did and joined the strike some years later. Her lead allows Dagny to find Hugh Akston.
Dr. Thomas Hendricks is a famous brain surgeon who developed a new method of preventing strokes. He joined Galt's strike when the American medical system was put under government control.
Tinky Holloway is one of the "looters" and is frequently referred to and quoted by other characters in the story, but he has only one major appearance, during the Washington meeting with Hank Rearden.
Lee Hunsacker is in charge of a company called Amalgamated Service that takes over the Twentieth Century Motor Company. He files a lawsuit that eventually leads Midas Mulligan and Judge Narragansett to join the strike. A failed businessman, he laments constantly that no one ever gave him a chance.
Gwen Ives is Hank Rearden's secretary, described as being in her late twenties and remaining calm and professional despite the chaos that threatens his business. When Rearden abandons his mills and joins Galt's strike, she and many other employees do the same.
Gilbert Keith-Worthing is a British novelist of erstwhile fame, now neglected but still considered a "walking classic," and a proponent of the idea that freedom is an illusion. Kip Chalmers brings him along on the train to California, "for no reason that either of them could discover"; he dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
Owen Kellogg is assistant to the manager of the Taggart Terminal in New York. He catches Dagny Taggart's eye as one of the few competent men on staff. After seeing the sorry state of the Ohio Division, she decides to make him its new superintendent. However, as soon as she returns to New York, Kellogg informs her that he is quitting his job. Owen Kellogg eventually reaches, and settles in, Galt's Gulch.
Fred Kinnan is a labor leader and member of the looter cabal. Unlike the others, however, Kinnan is straightforward and honest about his purpose. Kinnan is the only one to openly state his and his fellow conspirators' true motivations. At the end of Galt's three-hour speech, he expresses admiration for the man, as he says what he means. Despite this, Kinnan admits that he is one of the people Galt is out to destroy.
Paul Larkin is an unsuccessful, middle-aged businessman, a friend of the Rearden family. He meets with the other looters to work out a plan to bring Rearden down. James Taggart knows that he is a friend of Hank Rearden and challenges his loyalty; Larkin assures Taggart that he will go along with them.
Eugene Lawson heads the Community Bank of Madison, then gets a job with the government when his bank goes bankrupt under new government policies. One of the looter's cabal, he is a collectivist who abhors production and money-making.
Mort Liddy is a hack composer who writes trite scores for movies and modern symphonies to which no one listens. He believes melody is a primitive vulgarity. He is one of Lillian Rearden's friends and a member of the cultural elite.
Clifton Locey is a friend of Jim Taggart who takes the position of vice-president of operations when Dagny Taggart quits.
Pat Logan is the engineer on the first run of the John Galt Line. He later strikes.
Kay Ludlow is a beautiful actress who quit Hollywood because of the roles she was given and secretly married the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld.
Roger Marsh is a producer of electrical equipment who joins the strike. Dagny finds him growing cabbage in Galt's Gulch.
Dick McNamara is a contractor who finished the San Sebastián Line. Dagny Taggart plans to hire him to lay the new Rearden Metal track for the Rio Norte Line, but before she does so, he mysteriously disappears. She later discovers that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.
Cuffy Meigs is the Director of Unification for the railroad business. He carries a pistol and a lucky rabbit's foot, dresses in a military uniform, and is described as "impervious to thought". Meigs seizes control of Project X and accidentally destroys it, demolishing the country's last railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and killing himself, his men, and Dr. Stadler.
Dave Mitchum is a state-hired superintendent of the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental. He is partially responsible for the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
Chick Morrison holds the position of "morale conditioner" in the government. He quits when society begins to collapse and flees to a stronghold in Tennessee. His fellow looters consider it unlikely that he will survive.
Horace Bussby Mowen is the president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, Inc., of Connecticut. He is a businessman who sees nothing wrong with the moral code that is destroying society and would never dream of saying he is in business for any reason other than the good of society. Dagny Taggart hires Mowen to produce switches made of Rearden Metal. He is reluctant to build anything with this unproven technology and has to be cajoled into accepting the contract. When pressured by public opinion, he discontinues production of the switches, forcing Dagny to find an alternative source.
Midas Mulligan is a wealthy banker who mysteriously disappeared in protest after he was given a court order to lend money to an incompetent applicant. When the order came down, he liquidated his entire business, paid off his depositors, and joined Galt's strike. He is the legal owner of the land where Galt's Gulch is located. Mulligan's birth name was Michael, but he had it legally changed after a news article called him "Midas" in a derogatory fashion, which Mulligan took as a compliment.
Judge Narragansett is an American jurist who ruled in favor of Midas Mulligan during the case brought against him by the incompetent loan applicant. When Narragansett's ruling was reversed on appeal, he retired and joined the strike. At the end of the novel, he is seen editing the United States Constitution, crossing out portions that contradict each other and adding an amendment to prohibit Congress from passing laws that restrain freedom of trade.
Ben Nealy is a railroad contractor whom Dagny Taggart hires to replace the track on the Rio Norte Line with Rearden Metal. Nealy is incompetent, but Dagny can find no one better in all the country. Nealy believes that anything can get done with enough muscle power. He sees no role for intelligence in human achievement. He relies on Dagny and Ellis Wyatt to run things and resents them for doing it, because it appears to him that they are just bossing people around.
Ted Nielsen is the head of Nielsen Motors. He eventually goes on strike, along with most of the other industrialist "producer" types, by closing his motor factory. Dagny later finds him when she visits Galt's Gulch for the first time.
Betty Pope is a wealthy socialite who is having a meaningless sexual affair with James Taggart. She is deliberately crude in a way that casts ridicule on her high social position.
Dr. Potter holds some undefined position with the State Science Institute. He is sent to try to obtain the rights to Rearden Metal.
Dr. Simon Pritchett is the prestigious head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University and is considered the leading philosopher of the age. He believes that man is nothing but a collection of chemicals, reason is a superstition, it is futile to seek meaning in life, and the duty of a philosopher is to show that nothing can be understood.
Rearden's mother, whose name is not mentioned, lives with Rearden at his home in Philadelphia. She is involved in charity work and berates Rearden whenever she can. She dotes on her weak son Philip Rearden.
Philip Rearden is the younger brother of Hank Rearden. He lives in his brother's home in Philadelphia and is completely dependent on him. He is resentful of his brother's charity.
Dwight Sanders owns Sanders Aircraft, a producer of high-quality airplanes, and joins the strike.
Bertram Scudder is an editorial writer for the magazine The Future. He typically bashes business and businessmen but he never says anything specific in his articles, relying on innuendo, sneers, and denunciation. He wrote a hatchet job on Hank Rearden called The Octopus. He is also vocal in support of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. Scudder claims that the most important thing in life is "brother love" but seems to have nothing but hatred for those around him. He loses his job after Dagny Taggart reveals her affair with Hank Rearden over air on his radio show.
Claude Slagenhop is president of the political organization Friends of Global Progress and one of Lillian Rearden's friends. He believes that ideas are just air and that this is no time for talk, but for action. Global Progress is a sponsor of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.
Gerald and Ivy Starnes are the two surviving children of Jed Starnes, the founder of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Together with their since-deceased brother Eric, they instituted a communistic payment-and-benefits program that drove the company into bankruptcy. Gerald, a dying alcoholic, and Ivy, a pseudo-Buddhist ascetic, continue to insist that the plan was perfect and that the failure of their father's company was entirely due to the workers. Eric was a weak, attention-seeking man with a pathological desire to be loved. He committed suicide after the woman he loved married another man. Gerald claims that he always acted for the good of the employees, but he was vain and incompetent and often threw lavish parties using company funds. Ivy, on the other hand, is described as a sadist who relishes seeing others in poverty, but who has no desire for wealth of her own.
Andrew Stockton runs the Stockton Foundry in Stockton, Colorado. When he joins the strike, he opens a foundry in Galt's Gulch.
Mr. Thompson is the "head of the state" for the United States. He is not particularly intelligent and has a very undistinguished look. He knows politics, however, and is a master of public relations and back-room deals. Rand's notes indicate that she modeled him on President Harry S. Truman and that she deliberately decided not to call him "President of the United States" as this title has "honorable connotations" which the character does not deserve.
Lester Tuck is the campaign manager for Kip Chalmers and one of his guests on the train trip to California. He dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.
Clem Weatherby is a government representative on the board of directors of Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny considers him the least bad of the government representatives, since he does have some real knowledge of the running of trains. She notices, however, that he is the least appreciated by his own bosses.
The Wet Nurse (Tony) is a young bureaucrat sent by the government to watch over Rearden's mills. Though he starts out as a cynical follower of the looters' code, his experience at the mills transforms him, and he comes to respect and admire the producers. He is shot attempting to inform Hank Rearden about a government plot, but does succeed in warning Rearden just before he dies.Krupinski, Jotnana. "In the Beginning Was the Thought: The Story of the Wet Nurse". In
Ellis Wyatt is the head of Wyatt Oil. He has almost single-handedly revived the economy of Colorado by discovering a new process for extracting more oil from what were thought to be exhausted oil wells. When first introduced, he is aggressive towards Dagny, whom he does not yet know and whom he blames for what are, in fact, her brother's policies which directly threaten his business. When the government passes laws and decrees which make it impossible for him to continue, he sets all his oil wells on fire and disappears from public view, leaving a note: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." One particular burning well that resists all efforts to extinguish it becomes known as "Wyatt's Torch". Later Dagny meets him in Galt's Gulch. |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Notes | Notes |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | References | References |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Works cited | Works cited |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | External links | External links
Website with comprehensive list of individuals mentioned in Atlas Shrugged
Category:Fictional socialites
Category:Lists of literary characters
Category:Literary characters introduced in 1957 |
List of Atlas Shrugged characters | Table of Content | Short description, Major characters, Protagonists, Dagny Taggart, Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, Henry "Hank" Rearden, Eddie Willers, Ragnar Danneskjöld, Antagonists, James Taggart, Lillian Rearden, Dr. Floyd Ferris, Dr. Robert Stadler, Wesley Mouch, Secondary characters, Notes, References, Works cited, External links |
Anthropology | Short description | Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Archaeology, often termed as "anthropology of the past," studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence. It is considered a branch of anthropology in North America and Asia, while in Europe, archaeology is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history and palaeontology. |
Anthropology | Etymology | Etymology
The abstract noun anthropology is first attested in reference to history. Its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann. Their Neo-Latin derived from the combining forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos (, "human") and lógos (, "study").Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "anthropology, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1885. Its adjectival form appeared in the works of Aristotle. It began to be used in English, possibly via French , by the early 18th century. |
Anthropology | Origin and development of the term | Origin and development of the term
thumb|upright|Bernardino de Sahagún is considered to be the founder of modern anthropology. |
Anthropology | Through the 19th century | Through the 19th century
In 1647, the Bartholins, early scholars of the University of Copenhagen, defined as follows:
Sporadic use of the term for some of the subject matter occurred subsequently, such as the use by Étienne Serres in 1839 to describe the natural history, or paleontology, of man, based on comparative anatomy, and the creation of a chair in anthropology and ethnography in 1850 at the French National Museum of Natural History by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau. Various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris, the first to use the term ethnology, was formed in 1839 and focused on methodically studying human races. After the death of its founder, William Frédéric Edwards, in 1842, it gradually declined in activity until it eventually dissolved in 1862.
Meanwhile, the Ethnological Society of New York, currently the American Ethnological Society, was founded on its model in 1842, as well as the Ethnological Society of London in 1843, a break-away group of the Aborigines' Protection Society. These anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro-human-rights activists. They maintained international connections.
Anthropology and many other current fields are the intellectual results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. Theorists in diverse fields such as anatomy, linguistics, and ethnology, started making feature-by-feature comparisons of their subject matters, and were beginning to suspect that similarities between animals, languages, and folkways were the result of processes or laws unknown to them then. For them, the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect. Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild.
Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s. There was an immediate rush to bring it into the social sciences. Paul Broca in Paris was in the process of breaking away from the Société de biologie to form the first of the explicitly anthropological societies, the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, meeting for the first time in Paris in 1859. When he read Darwin, he became an immediate convert to Transformisme, as the French called evolutionism. His definition now became "the study of the human group, considered as a whole, in its details, and in relation to the rest of nature".
Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon, had taken an interest in the pathology of speech. He wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the human brain, today called Broca's area after him. His interest was mainly in Biological anthropology, but a German philosopher specializing in psychology, Theodor Waitz, took up the theme of general and social anthropology in his six-volume work, entitled Die Anthropologie der Naturvölker, 1859–1864. The title was soon translated as "The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples". The last two volumes were published posthumously.
Waitz defined anthropology as "the science of the nature of man". Following Broca's lead, Waitz points out that anthropology is a new field, which would gather material from other fields, but would differ from them in the use of comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology to differentiate man from "the animals nearest to him". He stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation. The history of civilization, as well as ethnology, are to be brought into the comparison. It is to be presumed fundamentally that the species, man, is a unity, and that "the same laws of thought are applicable to all men".
Waitz was influential among British ethnologists. In 1863, the explorer Richard Francis Burton and the speech therapist James Hunt broke away from the Ethnological Society of London to form the Anthropological Society of London, which henceforward would follow the path of the new anthropology rather than just ethnology. It was the 2nd society dedicated to general anthropology in existence. Representatives from the French Société were present, though not Broca. In his keynote address, printed in the first volume of its new publication, The Anthropological Review, Hunt stressed the work of Waitz, adopting his definitions as a standard. Among the first associates were the young Edward Burnett Tylor, inventor of cultural anthropology, and his brother Alfred Tylor, a geologist. Previously Edward had referred to himself as an ethnologist; subsequently, an anthropologist.
Similar organizations in other countries followed: The Anthropological Society of Madrid (1865), the American Anthropological Association in 1902, the Anthropological Society of Vienna (1870), the Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (1871), and many others subsequently. The majority of these were evolutionists. One notable exception was the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory (1869) founded by Rudolph Virchow, known for his vituperative attacks on the evolutionists. Not religious himself, he insisted that Darwin's conclusions lacked empirical foundation.
During the last three decades of the 19th century, a proliferation of anthropological societies and associations occurred, most independent, most publishing their own journals, and all international in membership and association. The major theorists belonged to these organizations. They supported the gradual osmosis of anthropology curricula into the major institutions of higher learning. By 1898, 48 educational institutions in 13 countries had some curriculum in anthropology. None of the 75 faculty members were under a department named anthropology. |
Anthropology | 20th and 21st centuries | 20th and 21st centuries
Anthropology as a specialized field of academic study developed much through the end of the 19th century. Then it rapidly expanded beginning in the early 20th century to the point where many of the world's higher educational institutions typically included anthropology departments. Thousands of anthropology departments have come into existence, and anthropology has also diversified from a few major subdivisions to dozens more. Practical anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge and technique to solve specific problems, has arrived; for example, the presence of buried victims might stimulate the use of a forensic archaeologist to recreate the final scene. The organization has also reached a global level. For example, the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), "a network of national, regional and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology", currently contains members from about three dozen nations.
Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social anthropology in Great Britain and cultural anthropology in the US have been distinguished from other social sciences by their emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons, long-term in-depth examination of context, and the importance they place on participant-observation or experiential immersion in the area of research. Cultural anthropology, in particular, has emphasized cultural relativism, holism, and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques.Hylland Eriksen, Thomas. (2004) "What is Anthropology" Pluto. London. p. 79. . This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas' arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism. Ethnography is one of its primary research designs as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork.On varieties of cultural relativism in anthropology, see Spiro, Melford E. (1987) "Some Reflections on Cultural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to Emotion and Reason," in Culture and Human Nature: Theoretical Papers of Melford E. Spiro. Edited by B. Kilborne and L.L. Langness, pp. 32–58. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
In Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the British tradition of social anthropology tends to dominate. In the United States, anthropology has traditionally been divided into the four field approach developed by Franz Boas in the early 20th century: biological or physical anthropology; social, cultural, or sociocultural anthropology; archaeological anthropology; and linguistic anthropology. These fields frequently overlap but tend to use different methodologies and techniques.
European countries with overseas colonies tended to practice more ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783). It is sometimes referred to as sociocultural anthropology in the parts of the world that were influenced by the European tradition.Layton, Robert (1998) An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
Anthropology | Fields | Fields
Anthropology is a global discipline involving humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from natural sciences, including the discoveries about the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens, human physical traits, human behavior, the variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture, and from social sciences, including the organization of human social and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc.What is Anthropology – American Anthropological Association . Aaanet.org. Retrieved on 2 November 2016.What is Anthropology . Living Anthropologically. Retrieved on 2017-17-01. Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity.Understanding Other Religions: Al-Biruni's and Gadamer's "fusion of Horizons"
By Kemal Ataman p. 59 As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, and various ethnic studies.
According to Clifford Geertz,
Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies. During the 1970s and 1990s, there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline.{{}} During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in cultural and social anthropology. In contrast, archaeology and biological anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology, the four sub-fields of anthropology have lacked cohesion over the last several decades. |
Anthropology | Sociocultural | Sociocultural
Sociocultural anthropology draws together the principal axes of cultural anthropology and social anthropology. Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of the manifold ways in which people make sense of the world around them, while social anthropology is the study of the relationships among individuals and groups. Cultural anthropology is more related to philosophy, literature and the arts (how one's culture affects the experience for self and group, contributing to a more complete understanding of the people's knowledge, customs, and institutions), while social anthropology is more related to sociology and history. In that, it helps develop an understanding of social structures, typically of others and other populations (such as minorities, subgroups, dissidents, etc.). There is no hard-and-fast distinction between them, and these categories overlap to a considerable degree.
Inquiry in sociocultural anthropology is guided in part by cultural relativism, the attempt to understand other societies in terms of their own cultural symbols and values. Accepting other cultures in their own terms moderates reductionism in cross-cultural comparison. This project is often accommodated in the field of ethnography. Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and the product of ethnographic research, i.e. an ethnographic monograph. As a methodology, ethnography is based upon long-term fieldwork within a community or other research site. Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding a culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic, or technical) point of view.
The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of sociocultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal. Sociocultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology).
Comparison across cultures is a key element of method in sociocultural anthropology, including the industrialized (and de-industrialized) West. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) includes 186 such cultures. |
Anthropology | Biological | Biological
thumb|Forensic anthropologists can help identify skeletonized human remains, such as these found lying in scrub in Western Australia, c. 1900–1910.
Biological anthropology and physical anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines the biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation. |
Anthropology | Archaeological | Archaeological
Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways.Robbins, R.H. & Larkin, S.N. (2007). Cultural Anthropology: A problem-based approach. Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
thumb|The Rosetta Stone was an example of ancient communication. |
Anthropology | Linguistic | Linguistic
Linguistic anthropology (not to be confused with anthropological linguistics) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis.Salzmann, Zdeněk. (1993) Language, culture, and society: an introduction to linguistic anthropology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. |
Anthropology | Ethnography | Ethnography
Ethnography is a method of analysing social or cultural interaction. It often involves participant observation though an ethnographer may also draw from texts written by participants of in social interactions. Ethnography views first-hand experience and social context as important.
Tim Ingold distinguishes ethnography from anthropology arguing that anthropology tries to construct general theories of human experience, applicable in general and novel settings, while ethnography concerns itself with fidelity. He argues that the anthropologist must make his writing consistent with their understanding of literature and other theory but notes that ethnography may be of use to the anthropologists and the fields inform one another. |
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