The years 2004-2012 mark the fiftieth anniversary of the French-Algerian War (1954-1962), the bloody war of decoloninization that left the separate nations of France and Algeria in its wake.  These years have also seen the publication of several important works on the two countries and their violent divorce, among them the admirable books by Todd Shepard, Marie-Pierre Ulloa, and James McDougall under review in this essay.