toman period with an introductory chapter on the 15 th century. My plan was to continue my research to cover also the French period, but an un-fortunate event took place in 1988 at Heathrow صلى الله عليه وسلمirport, (London), that is the loss of more than three drafted chapters, diary, notes, personal pa-pers and photocopied documents from different archives. It was a big blow for my project. For tlrree years, the shock prevented me from re-suming research. The big question I faced was: How to start again?

صلى الله عليه وسلمfter loosing hope in recovering the lost briefcase, I slowly re-sumed my research around 1991. In 1993,1 was fortunate to receive a Fulbright Grant. Meanwhile the University of صلى الله عليه وسلمlgiers gave me a sabbat-ical year and the University of Minnesota offered me library and other research facilities .

The original plan was to cover all forms and aspects of the صلى الله عليه وسلمlgerian culture. I had to study also the political, economic and social factors which had an impact on the culture. In both the Ottoman and the French periods I dealt with education, literature, jurisprudence, theology, logic, travels, sciences, mysticism, art and music. New forms and aspects of this culture appeared during the French period, including newspapers, theater, cinema, radio, museums, and printing. Scholars who contribut-ed to the development of the culture were also studied but within. The framework of the main subject which they contributed to the book therefore is not a collection of biographies, rather biographies are part of the main stream of the cultural aspect under study. From another an-gle, the book is divided into two distinct parts. The first part is a theo-retical and interpretive study of the factors that shaped صلى الله عليه وسلمlgerian culture and forms through which it has been expressed. The second part is a particular study of the texts which were written by صلى الله عليه وسلمlgerian scholars in their respective fields, e.g. history , literature, medicine, music, etc.

عز وجلuring the French occupation, French Orientalists played an impor-tant part in discovering the heritage of صلى الله عليه وسلمrabic and Islamic صلى الله عليه وسلمlgeria. The coming of René رضي الله عنهasset in the I 880's, the establishment of the صلى الله عليه وسلمcole des letters (in 1909, it became Faculté des lettres when the new University