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'Meredith has given a spectacularly clear view of the African political jungle' – Spectator 'This book is hard to beat... Elegantly written as well as unerringly accurate' – Financial Times The fortunes of Africa have changed dramatically since the independence era began in 1957. As Europe’s colonial powers withdrew, dozens of new states were born. Africa was a continent rich in mineral resources and its economic potential was immense. Yet, it soon struggled with corruption, violence and warfare, with few states managing to escape the downward spiral. So what went wrong? In this riveting and authoritative account, Martin Meredith examines the myriad problems that Africa has faced, focusing upon key personalities, events and themes of the independence era. He brings his compelling analysis into the modern day, exploring Africa’s enduring struggles for democracy and the rising influence of China. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the continent’s plight and its hopes for a brighter future.
African Independence highlights the important role Africa has played in recent history and the significant role it will continue to play in the future of America and the globe. In a world where much of the power and wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a very few people, this book looks at how the history of African independence has touched all people—from refugees to heads of state. Author Tukufu Zuberi weaves exclusive interview excerpts and stories from many Africans he has met with old newsreels, current news and reports, and research into a larger narrative that takes readers through key events in African history and shows their importance today. The book provides context for understanding connections between events in Africa and the world, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram acts of war against the citizens of Nigeria and neighboring states, China’s rise as the main superpower with the largest financial connections to the African continent, and the so-called war against terrorism. Zuberi is also the director of the documentary African Independence, which has won awards including Best Director and Best Documentary at the San Diego Black Film Festival, Best Director at The People’s Film Festival, Best African Film at the San Diego Black Film Festival, and more. Both alone and together, the book and film offer a deeper understanding of Africa’s central role in world affairs.
This book examines postcolonial strategies for economic development in Africa from the 1960s to the present day.
'A superb book...genuinely innovative' Jack Spence OBE, King's College London Over the last half century, sub-Saharan Africa has not had one history, but many. Histories that have intertwined, converged and diverged. They have involved a continuing process of decolonization and state-building, conflict, economic problems but also progress and the perpetual interplay of structure and agency. This new view of those histories looks in particular at the relationship between territorial, economic, political and societal structures and human agency in the complex and sometimes confusing development of an independent Africa. The story starts well before the granting of independence to Ghana in 1957, but the book also looks at Africa in the closing decades of the old millennium and opening ones of the new. This is a book, too, about the history of the peoples of Africa and their struggle for economic development against the global economic straitjacket into which they were strapped by colonial rule and decolonisation. The importance of imposed or inherited structures, whether the global capitalist system, of which Africa is a subordinate part, or the artificial and often inappropriate state borders and political systems is discussed in the light of the exercise of agency by African peoples, political movements and leaders.
This book explores foreign policy developments in post-colonial Africa. A continental foreign policy is a tenuous proposition, yet new African states emerged out of armed resistance and advocacy from regional allies such as the Bandung Conference and the League of Arab States. Ghana was the first Sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in 1957. Fourteen more countries gained independence in 1960 alone, and by May 1963, when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed, 30 countries were independent. An early OAU committee was the African Liberation Committee (ALC), tasked to work in the Frontline States (FLS) to support independence in Southern Africa. Pan-Africanists, in alliance with Brazzaville, Casablanca and Monrovia groups, approached continental unity differently, and regionalism continued to be a major feature. Africa’s challenges were often magnified by the capitalist-democratic versus communist-socialist bloc rivalry, but through Africa’s use and leveraging of IGOs – the UN, UNDP, UNECA, GATT, NIEO and others – to advance development, the formation of the African Economic Community, OAU’s evolution into the AU and other alliances belied collective actions, even as Africa implemented decisions that required cooperation: uti possidetis (maintaining colonial borders), containing secession, intra- and inter-state conflicts, rebellions and building RECs and a united Africa as envisioned by Pan Africanists worked better collectively.
Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.
Decades after independence for most African states, the struggle for decolonization is still incomplete, as demonstrated by the fact that Africa remains associated in many Western minds with chaos, illness, and disorder. African and non-African scholars alike still struggle to establish the idea of African humanity, in all its diversity, and to move Africa beyond its historical role as the foil to the West. As this book shows, Africa’s decolonization is an ongoing process across a range of fronts, and intellectuals—both African and non-African—have significant roles to play in that process. The essays collected here examine issues such as representation and retrospection; the roles of intellectuals in the public sphere; and the fundamental question of how to decolonize African knowledges. African Intellectuals and Decolonization outlines ways in which intellectual practice can serve to de-link Africa from its global representation as a debased, subordinated, deviant, and inferior entity. Contributors Lesley Cowling, University of the Witwatersrand Nicholas M. Creary, University at Albany Marlene De La Cruz, Ohio University Carolyn Hamilton, University of Cape Town George Hartley, Ohio University Janet Hess, Sonoma State University T. Spreelin McDonald, Ohio University Ebenezer Adebisi Olawuyi, University of Ibadan Steve Odero Ouma, University of Nairobi Oyeronke Oyewumi, State University of New York at Stony Brook Tsenay Serequeberhan, Morgan State University
"A highly readable, sweeping, and yet detailed analysis of the African state in all its failures and moments of hope. Crawford Young manages to touch upon all the important issues in the discipline and crucial developments in the recent history of the African continent. This book will be a classic."---Pierre Englebert, author of Africa Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow --