Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa

Notes

Notes Chapter 1 1. Some of the best known include Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans et la France (1871–1919), 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968); Yves Lacoste, André Nouschi, and André Prenant, L’Algérie: Passé et présent (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1960); Charles-André Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine: La Conquête et les débuts de la colonisation (1827–1871) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964); Daniel Rivet, Lyautey et l’instauration du protectorat français au Maroc 1912–1925, 3 vols. (Paris: Harmattan , 1988); and Jean Poncet and André Raymond, La Tunisie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971). 2. The call to tell “stories about stories about nature” in environmental history was voiced over a decade ago by William Cronon. See “A Place for Stories: Nature, History and Narrative,” Journal of American History 78, no. 4 (March 1992): 1347–76. 3. The term “Maghreb” is used throughout this book to refer to the three North African countries of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. It does not include Libya, although other writers sometimes include Libya as part of the Maghreb. 4. P. Christian, L’Afrique française, l’empire de Maroc et les déserts de Sahara (Paris: A. Barbier, 1846), 315. All translations from the French are mine unless otherwise noted. 5. Résidence Générale de France à Tunis, Service des Affaires Indigènes, Historique de l’annexe des affaires indigènes de Ben-Gardane (Bourg: Victor Berthod, 1931), 13. 6. Augustin Bernard and Napoléon Lacroix, L’Évolution du nomadisme en Algérie (Alger: Adolphe Jourdan, 1906), 24. 7. See Paul Boudy, Économie forestière nord-africaine: Milieu physique et milieu humain, vol. 1 (Paris: Larose, 1948), 227. Davis.187-262 5/25/07 11:04 AM Page 187 8. Bernard and Lacroix, L’Évolution, 24. For a fuller discussion of Ibn Khaldoun and the problematic and selective use of his writings during the colonial period, including the intense debates and controversy among French scholars in the postcolonial period, see chap. 3 below. 9. André Nouschi, Enquête sur le niveau de vie des populations rurales constantinoises de la conquête jusqu’en 1919 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961), 161. 10. Louis Lavauden,“Les Forêts du Sahara,”Revue des Eaux et Forêts 65, no. 6 (1927): 265–77 and 329–41. 11. Bernard and Lacroix, L’Évolution, 42–43. 12. José Germain and Stéphane Faye, Le Nouveau monde français: Maroc— Algérie—Tunisie (Paris: Plon, 1924), ii–iii. 13. Brent Shaw, “Climate, Environment, and History: The Case of Roman North Africa,” in Climate and History: Studies in Past Climates and Their Impact on Man, ed. T. Wigley, M. Ingram, and G. Farmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 379–403. 14. Ibid., 389. Reliable estimates of production and domestic consumption of grains in North Africa at this time are not available, to the best of my knowledge. 15. Anon., Statistique et documents relatifs au Sénatus-Consulte sur la propri été arabe (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1863), 478. 16. Jean Saint-Germes, Économie algérienne (Alger: La Maison des Livres, 1955), 104–5. 17. Annual harvests fluctuate wildly depending on the amount of precipitation in any given year. The cereal harvest in Morocco, for example, was 1,783,230 metric tons in 1995 (a severe drought year) and 10,103,620 metric tons, nearly ten times higher, in 1996 (a year of very good rainfall). 18.Bruno Messerli and Matthias Winiger,“Climate,Environmental Change, and Resources of the African Mountains from the Mediterranean to the Equator,” Mountain Research and Development 12, no. 4 (1992): 332. See also Jean-Louis Ballais,“Conquests and Land Degradation in the Eastern Maghreb during Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” in The Archaeology of Drylands , ed. Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson (London: Routledge, 2000), 125–36. 19. Messerli and Winiger,“Climate,”333. Overgrazing has long been blamed for reducing vegetation cover and thus causing significant erosion throughout the Mediterranean basin. Recent research demonstrates, however, that much erosion in the region is instead produced by very strong storms which in short periods of time generate large amounts of rainfall. In many areas, 188 | Notes to Pages 4–5 Davis.187-262 5/25/07 11:04 AM Page 188 these storms likely have had a more detrimental impact on the environment than pastoralism. See Karl W...