African History: A Very Short Introduction

African History: A Very Short Introduction
Author: John Parker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2007-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192802488

Intended for those interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this work looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. It illustrates key themes in modern thinking about Africa's history with a range of historical examples.

The British Press, Public Opinion and the End of Empire in Africa

The British Press, Public Opinion and the End of Empire in Africa
Author: Rosalind Coffey
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2022-01-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030894568

This book provides fresh insights into how the British press affected both British perceptions of decolonisation in Africa and British policy towards it during the ‘wind of change’ period. It also reveals, for the first time, the extent to which British newspaper coverage was of relevance to African and white settler readerships. British newspapers informed the political strategies and civic cultures of African activists, nationalists, liberal whites in Africa, the staunchest of white settler communities, and the first governments of independent African states and their opponents. The British press, British public opinion and British journalists became etched into the lived experiences of the end of empire affecting Anglo-African and Anglo-settler relations to this day. Arguing that the press cast a transnational web of influence over the decolonisation process in Africa, the author explores the relationships between the British, African and settler public and political spheres, and highlights the mediating power of the British press during the late 1950s. The book draws from a range of British newspapers, official government documents, newspaper archives, interviews, memoirs, autobiographies and articles printed in African and white settler papers. It will be of interest to historians of decolonisation, Africa, the media and the British Empire.

Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa

Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa
Author: Andrew W.M. Smith
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1911307746

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.

Ending British rule in Africa

Ending British rule in Africa
Author: Carol Polsgrove
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526118513

On the eve of World War II, a small, impoverished group of Africans and West Indians in London dared to imagine the unimaginable: the end of British rule in Africa. In books, pamphlets, and periodicals, they launched an anti-colonial campaign that used publishing as a pathway to liberation. West Indians George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and Ras Makonnen; Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Sierra Leone’s I. T. A. Wallace Johnson –made their point: that colonial rule was oppressive and inconsistent with the democratic ideals Britain claimed at home. Ending British Rule in Africa draws on previously unexplored manuscript and archival collections to trace the development of this publishing community from its origins in George Padmore’s American and Comintern years through the independence of Ghana in the 1957. This original study will be of interest to scholars and general readers interested in social movements, diaspora studies, empire and African history, publishing history, literary history, and cultural studies.

The Lunatic Express

The Lunatic Express
Author: Charles Miller
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 910
Release: 2015-07-13
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1784972711

In 1895, George Whitehouse arrived at the east African post of Mombasa to perform an engineering miracle: the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway – a 600-mile route that was largely unmapped and barely explored. Behind Mombasa lay a scorched, waterless desert. Beyond, a horizonless scrub country climbed toward a jagged volcanic region bisected by the Great Rift Valley. A hundred miles of sponge-like quagmire marked the railway's last lap. The entire right of way bristled with hostile tribes, teemed with lions and breathed malaria. What was the purpose of this 'giant folly' and whom would it benefit? Was it to exploit the rumoured wealth of little-known central African kingdoms? Was it to destroy the slave trade? To encourage commerce and settlement? THE LUNATIC EXPRESS explores the building of this great railway in an earlier Africa of slave and ivory empires, of tribal monarchs and the vast lands that they ruled. Above all, it is the story of the white intruders whose combination of avarice, honour and tenacious courage made them a breed apart.

The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism

The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism
Author: Lasse Heerten
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107111803

A global history of 'Biafra', providing a new explanation for the ascendance of humanitarianism in a postcolonial world.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Author: Walter Rodney
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2018-11-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1788731204

“A call to arms in the class struggle for racial equity”—the hugely influential work of political theory and history, now powerfully introduced by Angela Davis (Los Angeles Review of Books). This legendary classic on European colonialism in Africa stands alongside C.L.R. James’ Black Jacobins, Eric Williams’ Capitalism & Slavery, and W.E.B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction. In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914)

The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914)
Author: Mieke van der Linden
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2016-10-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004321195

Over recent decades, the responsibility for the past actions of the European colonial powers in relation to their former colonies has been subject to a lively debate. In this book, the question of the responsibility under international law of former colonial States is addressed. Such a legal responsibility would presuppose the violation of the international law that was applicable at the time of colonization. In the ‘Scramble for Africa’ during the Age of New Imperialism (1870-1914), European States and non-State actors mainly used cession and protectorate treaties to acquire territorial sovereignty (imperium) and property rights over land (dominium). The question is raised whether Europeans did or did not on a systematic scale breach these treaties in the context of the acquisition of territory and the expansion of empire, mainly through extending sovereignty rights and, subsequently, intervening in the internal affairs of African political entities.

Neo-Colonialism and the Poverty of 'Development' in Africa

Neo-Colonialism and the Poverty of 'Development' in Africa
Author: Mark Langan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-10-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319585711

Langan reclaims neo-colonialism as an analytical force for making sense of the failure of ‘development’ strategies in many African states in an era of free market globalisation. Eschewing polemics and critically engaging the work of Ghana’s first President – Kwame Nkrumah – the book offers a rigorous assessment of the concept of neo-colonialism. It then demonstrates how neo-colonialism remains an impediment to genuine empirical sovereignty and poverty reduction in Africa today. It does this through examination of corporate interventions; Western aid-giving; the emergence of ‘new’ donors such as China; EU-Africa trade regimes; the securitisation of development; and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Throughout the chapters, it becomes clear that the current challenges of African development cannot be solely pinned on so-called neo-patrimonial elites. Instead it becomes imperative to fully acknowledge, and interrogate, corporate and donor interventions which lock many poorer countries into neo-colonial patterns of trade and production. The book provides an original contribution to studies of African political economy, demonstrating the on-going relevance of the concept of neo-colonialism, and reclaiming it for scholarly analysis in a global era.

Scramble for Africa...

Scramble for Africa...
Author: Thomas Pakenham
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 710
Release: 1992-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0380719991

White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912