Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021

"Elizabeth Perego deconstructs the notion that humor is merely a 'weapon of the weak' by focusing on comedy's myriad functions, demonstrating that humor can support and/or challenge those in power, as well as those seeking power. Stated differently, humor can be used to unify or divide communities."

~Jennifer Howell, author of The Algerian War in French-Language Comics: Postcolonial Memory, History, and Subjectivity

"Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021 is the first book in English to examine in a systematic and sustained manner the role of humor in Algerian history and politics. It is genuinely pioneering. It engages with a subject everyone can connect with—what makes us laugh—but this is an aspect of Algerian society that is little understood outside of Algeria and France. Elizabeth Perego humanizes and de-exoticizes a region that has been subject to so many pernicious stereotypes in the 'Western' media."

~Martin Evans, author of Algeria: France's Undeclared War

"Humor and Power in Algeria lays out a persuasive case to take jokes seriously as a primary source for writing history. Deeply researched, written with a vivid sense of storytelling and keen theoretical nuance, this study analyzes the myriad forms of humor that have been so central to the political vocabularies of Algerians since the early twentieth century. Perego gathers together a multilingual and heterogeneous archive of Algerian jokes, caricatures, cartoons, slogans, bandes dessinées, theatrical productions, and other works. Pinpointing the ways that such forms of expression exist in relation to state authority yet also elude it—fluid, flexible, ambiguous, and vernacular, humor "can be whispered" across just about any boundary!—Perego sheds light on the particular power that humor took on during the ruptures of October 1988 and the 1990s war. In its critical framing, the book helps to break with scholarly practices that still tend to bind Algeria to its former colonizer by articulating a broader vision of cultural references and exchanges. And, in its steady insistence on listening closely to what civilians themselves were thinking and saying during difficult times, this is above all a tribute to the capaciousness, resilience, and often hilarious brilliance of Algerian imaginations."

~Jill Jarvis, author of Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

"In this thoughtful book, Elizabeth Perego argues that humour is more than a coping mecanism. Jokes and caricatures are this historian's way into the sequence of violence experienced by Algeria in the 1990s. She offers an intelligent, at times deeply moving, and always innovative history of violence."

~Malika Rahal, author of Algérie 1962: Une histoire populaire