Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
6
result(s) for
"Clapham, Christopher S., author"
Sort by:
The Horn of Africa : State Formation and Decay
Why is the Horn such a distinctive part of Africa? This book, by one of the foremost scholars of the region, traces this question through its exceptional history and also probes the wildly divergent fates of the Horn's contemporary nation-states, despite the striking regional particularity inherited from the colonial past. Christopher Clapham explores how the Horn's peculiar topography gave rise to the Ethiopian empire, the sole African state not only to survive European colonialism, but also to participate in a colonial enterprise of its own. Its impact on its neighbours, present-day Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Somaliland, created a region very different from that of post-colonial Africa. This dynamic has become all the more distinct since 1991, when Eritrea and Somaliland emerged from the break-up of both Ethiopia and Somalia. Yet this evolution has produced highly varied outcomes in the region's constituent countries, from state collapse (and deeply flawed reconstruction) in Somalia, through militarised isolation in Eritrea, to a still fragile 'developmental state' in Ethiopia. The tensions implicit in the process of state formation now drive the relationships between the once historically close nations of the Horn.
Book
Clifton Quarry, Worcestershire
Between 2006 and 2009 Worcestershire Archaeology completed a series of investigations in advance of quarrying at Clifton Quarry, Worcestershire revealing one of the most important sequences of prehistoric to early medieval activity discovered to date from the Central Severn Valley. Well-preserved palaeoenvironmental deposits were recovered from features and associated abandoned channels of the River Severn. Analysis of this evidence is underpinned by a comprehensive program of scientific dating, providing a record of changing patterns of landuse and activity from the Late Mesolithic onwards. Significant discoveries included a series of Grooved Ware pits and an extensive area of Early to Middle Iron Age activity. One of the Grooved pits was of particular importance as it contained an exceptionally rich material assemblage comprising two whole and four fragmentary polished axes, numerous flint tools and debitage, significant quantities of Durrington Walls and Clacton Style pottery, and abundant charred barley grains and crab apple fragments. The Early to Middle Iron Age activity was notable as, unusual for a lowland site, it was dominated by in excess of 100 four-post granary structures and 130 pits. The full extent of the activity was not established but it appears unenclosed and it is suggested that this represents the specialized storage zone of a much larger settlement. Phases of activity on the floodplain and terraces adjacent to the river also included a Bronze Age burnt mound with associated pits and a trough, a scatter of Romano-British features, and an early medieval timber-lined structure associated with flax retting.
eBook
Middlemen of the Cameroons Rivers
The Duala people entered the international scene as merchant-brokers for precolonial trade in ivory, slaves and palm products. Under colonial rule they used the advantages gained from earlier riverain trade to develop cocoa plantations and provide their children with exceptional levels of European education. At the same time they came into early conflict with both German and French regimes and played a leading - if ultimately unsuccessful - role in anti-colonial politics. In tracing these changing economic and political roles, this 1999 book also examines the growing consciousness of the Duala as an ethnic group and uses their history to shed light on the history of 'middleman' communities in surrounding regions of West and Central Africa. The authors draw upon a wide range of written and oral sources, including indigenous accounts of the past conflicting with their own findings but illuminate local conceptions of social hierarchy and their relationship to spiritual beliefs.
eBook
Guerrilla Veterans in Post-war Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's guerrilla veterans have burst into the international media as the storm troopers in Mugabe's new war of economic liberation. In this book, Norma Kriger gives the unfolding contemporary drama a historical background, and shows continuities between the present and past. Between 1980 and 1987, guerrilla veterans and the ruling party colluded with and manipulated each other to build power and privilege in the army, police, bureaucracy and among workers. Both relied chiefly on violence and appeals to their participation in the anti-colonial liberation war as they sought to vanquish their then political opponents. Today, violence and a liberation war discourse continue to be salient as Mugabe's party and its guerrilla veterans struggle to maintain power through land invasions and purges of a new political opposition. This study gives a critical review of guerrilla programs and the war-to-peace transitions literatures, thus changing the way we view post-conflict societies.
eBook
Transforming Mozambique
Many of the economic transformations in Africa have been as dramatic as those in Eastern Europe. Yet much of the comparative literature on transitions has overlooked African countries. This 2002 study of Mozambique's shift from a command to a market economy draws on a wealth of empirical material, including archival sources, interviews, political posters and corporate advertisements, to reveal that the state is a central actor in the reform process, despite the claims of neo-liberals and their critics. Alongside the state, social forces - from World Bank officials to rural smallholders - have also accelerated, thwarted or shaped change in Mozambique. M. Anne Pitcher offers an intriguing analysis of the dynamic interaction between previous and emerging agents, ideas and institutions, to explain the erosion of socialism and the politics of privatization in a developing country. She demonstrates that Mozambique's political economy is a heterogenous blend of ideological and institutional continuities and ruptures.
eBook
Re-Imagining Rwanda
The tragic conflict in Rwanda and the Great Lakes in 1994–1996 attracted the horrified attention of the world's media. Journalists, diplomats and aid workers struggled to find a way to make sense of the bloodshed. Johan Pottier's troubling study shows that the post-genocide regime in Rwanda was able to impose a simple yet persuasive account of Central Africa's crises upon international commentators new to the region, and he explains the ideological underpinnings of this official narrative. He also provides a sobering analysis of the way in which this simple, persuasive, but fatally misleading analysis of the situation on the ground led to policy errors that exacerbated the original crisis. Professor Pottier has extensive field experience in the region, from before and after the genocide, and he has also worked among refugees in eastern Zaire.
eBook