Morocco and Algeria, together at last (at least in my MidEast class)

I'm taking a survey course on Middle Eastern history, and I just had to read the book and watch the movie version of Bab el-Oued, about Algerian Islamic extremism. Yesterday I read Year of the Elephant, a book about the Moroccan struggle for independence and those it left behind. Reading Year of the Elephant (in Arabic, عام الفيل), I was struck by how brave the Moroccan revolutionaries in the book were--and how quickly they forgot that the thirst for self-determination is unquenchable.

Have you read these two books, and what did you think? I promise I'm not looking for a plot summary so I don't have to read them myself.