Benjamin Stora

Benjamin Stora is a French historian of North Africa who writes on the history of Algeria and the Algerian War.

born 1950History of colonial AlgeriaMemory of the Algerian WarFounding the Institut Maghreb-Europe

Born: 2 December 1950, Constantine
Occupation: historian, university teacher, sociologist
Party: Socialist Party
Education: Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, Paris Nanterre University, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

Benjamin Stora was born in 1950 in Constantine

Benjamin Stora was born on 2 December 1950 in Constantine, Algeria. He came from a Jewish family that left Algeria after its War of Independence in 1962.

He earned two PhDs, in 1974 and 1984, and a Doctorate of the State in 1991. In 1968 he joined a Trotskyist activist group led by Pierre Lambert, and he was a member of the Socialist Party from 1985 to 1988.

Stora taught at the University of Paris 13 and founded the Institut Maghreb-Europe in 1991. He did research in Hanoi and in Rabat, and in 1998 he was a guest lecturer in New York. He has published many books on Algeria, its national movement and its war with France.

He was historical advisor for the film Indochine and for films released in 2010. He made the documentary The Algerian Years, broadcast in 1991. From 2013 to 2018 he served as inspector general of French national education.