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Decolonisation and Regional Geopolitics argues that as much as the 'Congo Crisis' (1960-1965) was a Cold War battleground, so too was it a battleground for Southern Africa's decolonisation. This book provides a transnational history of African decolonisation, apartheid diplomacy, and Southern African nationalist movements. It answers three central questions. First, what was the nature of South African involvement in the Congo Crisis? Second, what was the rationale for this involvement? Third, how did South Africans perceive the crisis? Innovatively, the book shifts the focus on the Congo Crisis away from Cold War intervention and centres it around African decolonisation and regional geopolitics.

This lively book interrogates the African postcolonial condition with a focus on the thematics of liberation predicament and the long standing crisis of dependence (epistemological, cultural, economic, and political) created by colonialism and coloniality. A sophisticated deployment of historical, philosophical, and political knowledge in combination with the equi-primordial concepts of coloniality of power, coloniality of being, and coloniality of knowledge yields a comprehensive and truly refreshing understanding of African realities of subalternity. How global imperial designs and coloniality of power shaped the architecture of African social formations and disciplined the social forces towards a convoluted ëpostcolonial neocolonizedí paralysis dominated by myths of decolonization and illusions of freedom emerges poignantly in this important book. What distinguishes this book is its decolonial entry that enables a critical examination of the grammar of decolonization that is often wrongly conflated with that of emancipation; bold engagement with the intractable question of what and who is an African; systematic explication of the role of coloniality in sustaining Euro-American hegemony; and unmasking of how the ëpostcolonialí is interlocked with the ëneocolonialí paradoxically. It is within this context that the postcolonial African state emerges as a leviathan, and the ëpostcolonialí reality becomes a terrain of contradictions mediated by the logic of violence. No doubt, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheniís handling of complex concepts and difficult questions of the day is remarkable, particularly the decoding and mixing of complex theoretical interventions from Africa and Latin America to enlighten the present, without losing historical perspicacity. To buttress the theoretical arguments, detailed empirical case studies of South Africa, Zimbabwe, DRC and Namibia completes this timely contribution to African Studies.

Conflict and instability are built into the very fabric of the Middle East and North African (MENA) state and states system; yet both states and states system have displayed remarkable resilience. How can we explain this? This handbook explores the main debates, theoretical approaches and accumulated empirical research by prominent scholars in the field, providing an essential context for scholars pursuing research on the MENA state and states system. Contributions are grouped into four key themes: Historical contexts, state-building and politics in MENA State actors, societal context and popular activism Trans-state politics: the political economy and identity contexts The international politics of MENA The 26 chapters examine the evolution of the state and states system, before and after independence, and take the 2011 Arab uprisings as a pivotal moment that intensified trends already embedded in the system, exposing the deep features of state and system—specifically their built-in vulnerability and their ability to survive. This handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the history and role of the state in the MENA region. It offers a key resource for all researchers and students interested in international relations and the Middle East and North Africa.

In an insightful new study, Donald Freeman examines the development and significance of urban agriculture in Nairobi, Kenya, overturning a number of common assumptions about the inhabitants and economy of African cities. He addresses the ways in which urban agriculture fits into a broader picture of Kenyan social and economic development and discusses the implications of his findings for development theory in general. Freeman begins by exploring the context of urban agriculture, tracing its development in the colonial and post-colonial city. He then provides a detailed description of urban farmers, their land use practices, and their crops. Freeman gathered this rich body of information through on-site surveys of 618 small-scale cultivators in ten different parts of Nairobi. He concludes by considering the implications of the burgeoning practice of urban agriculture for the cultivators themselves, for the city, and for the developing economy of Kenya. Although the empirical work is focused on Nairobi and its informal sector, the scope and implications of the study are broader and the conclusions relevant to other parts of the Third World. \"Urban\" productive activities in the Third World, Freeman suggests, need redefining to take account of basic food production in the city and its interrelationships with other informal and formal sectors. A City of Farmers will interest not only economic geographers and students and scholars of development studies and African history but anyone concerned with economic and social conditions in the Third World.

John Kiyaga-Nsubuga focuses on Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement regime's attempt to bring peace to Uganda. John Prendergast and Mark Duffield look at Ethiopia's long civil war and the role of liberation politics and external engagement. Bruce Jones studies the ethnic roots of the civil war in Rwanda. Elwood Dunn explores political manipulation and ethnic differences as causes of civil strife in Liberia. John Saul examines the role of Western powers in establishing peace in Mozambique. Hussein Adam describes the collapse of the authoritarian regime in Somalia and the subsequent rise of inter-clan and sub-clan rivalry. Taisier Ali and Robert Matthews argue that the forty-year conflict in Sudan is much more complex than the usual view that it results from the pitting of the Arab, Islamic North against the African, Christian South. Shifting the focus to how internal unrest may be managed, Hevina Dashwood examines government initiatives undertaken to maintain stability in Zimbabwe and Cranford Pratt describes the policies and institutions developed by Nyerere that enabled Tanzania to avoid ethnic, regional, and religious factionalism and intra-elite rivalries. James Busumtwi-Sam explores multilateral third-party intervention, highlighting the changing role of the OAU and the United Nations and their effectiveness in averting war. The concluding chapter draws together findings from the individual case studies and incorporates them into the larger corpus of the literature.

Dark Age recounts the turbulent political career of recently deceased Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the flamboyant president-for-life and later emperor of the Central African Republic/Empire. Brian Titley examines the myths and legends surrounding the man, probes their origins and veracity, and attempts to provide a more balanced perspective on this controversial and misunderstood figure. Following a lengthy career in the French army, Bokassa seized power in the Central African Republic in 1966. His flamboyance and excesses soon became legendary: he was accused of cannibalism, feeding enemies to lions and crocodiles, and beating schoolchildren to death. Bokassa's tendency for self-aggrandizement culminated in 1977 when he named himself emperor and orchestrated a coronation in the style of Napoleon's. He was overthrown by French paratroopers in 1979 and went into exile, but returned to his homeland in 1985 to face a sensational trial. Titley interprets Bokassa's authoritarian and self-aggrandizing style as an attempt to legitimize his regime in a context devoid of indigenous political structures and explores the troubled relations between France and its former colonies. Combining techniques of historical inquiry and investigative journalism, he has produced a fascinating account of a pivotal chapter in contemporary African history.

The British South Africa Company and the irregularity of its financial and political operations are dealt with in detail. Keppel-Jones also discusses the development in the midst of the indigenous population of an alien white society and state, from their crude beginnings to their emergence in a form still recognizable today. The reader is led to conclude that by 1902 Southern Rhodesia was already set on the road that would lead to the upheavals of the second half of the twentieth-century. The author examines the racial consciousness and prejudice of the white society and addresses an important question: why did the imperial government grant a royal charter to the BSA Company? The facts show conclusively that the imperial government had little interest in Central Africa or care for its fate except when foreign competition appeared. Keppel-Jones also reveals the important role played by black troops employed by the Company in suppressing the rebellions of 1896-7. For opposite reasons, neither blacks nor whites have been willing to recognize this; on the other hand the habit of the 'men-on-the-spot' of making and carrying out decisions without regard to their superiors in London is a commonplace of imperial history. One of the main themes of the book is the tension between the unofficial imperialists, straining at the leash, and the Colonial Office, struggling to hold them back. Rhodes and Rhodesia is based on extensive use of public records, mainly in the Public Record Office, London, and the National Archives of Zimbabwe, of collections of private papers, and of contemporary published works.

In this pioneering study Douglas Anglin describes and dissects the process of crisis decision making in Zambia through a detailed reconstruction of the most critical decisions of 1965-66, and assesses the effect of crisis-induced stress on the policy outcomes of President Kenneth Kaunda and other Zambian leaders. This case study of Zambian decision making is designed not merely to illuminate a Third World crisis of unusual interest and importance but also to contribute to knowledge and theory about actor responses under conditions of crisis. It will be of interest to Africanists, diplomatic historians, and students of international crises, conflicts, negotiations, sanctions, and diplomacy.

Wm. E. Welmers surveys a wide range of structural characteristics, both phonological and grammatical, of the languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on thirty years of experience in the analysis and teaching of African languages, and on work done on some seventy spoken languages, Welmers has organized the volume by linguistic topic. Thus there are extensive discussions of tonal systems in languages from all over sub-Saharan Africa, of noun classes and concord in the Bantu and other Niger-Kordofanian languages, and of the varieties of verbal constructions found in representative languages.   African Language Structures emphasizes the organization of language data rather than the technicalities of theoretical linguistics. The material is presented in such a way that students working on the analysis of other languages can be guided in their procedures; Welmers suggests not only what types of structures may be expected, but also how they may be discovered and described.   This work is unique in the depth of its linguistic insight over the entire spectrum of language structure and in the breadth of its language coverage.   This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.