Bøger i African Studies serien

This book examines the history of the colonial conquest of a neglected region of Angola from an alternative perspective. Dr Clarence-Smith has used advances in Marxist theory to develop a model of the early colonial period which differs greatly from the established historiography of `African resistance'.

The popular image of the Kalahari is a romantic one of desert space and untouched Bushmen.

First published in 1978, this study analyses the political history and sociology of one particular group - the railway workers of Ghana's third city, Sekondi-Takoradi, who are renowned for their leading role in the Ghanaian nationalist movement and for their sustained opposition to the elitism and authoritarianism of post-Independence governments.

This book examines the ways in which racial and economic stratification were brought to coincide in pre-industrial South Africa by describing in detail the history of one group, the Griquas of Philippolis and Kokstad.

The study concludes that instead of being a separating step to remove colonial influence, decolonization in more important respects ensured the continuity of the colonial political economy. The book is of interest to scholars, students and others interested in decolonization, white settles, East African affairs and land reform, as well as the general reader following current events in Africa.

This book surveys the field of industrialisation in Ghana and its effects through such other factors as migration. It provides a valuable comparison both with industrialisation elsewhere and with other aspects of African social life.

An account of the Nigerian military coups of 1966 in which the author discusses both the events themselves and their sociological background.

The first comprehensive narrative of French involvement in Chad's civil wars in the first two decades of its independence between 1960 and 1982, this study explores France's counterinsurgency efforts to protect the regime of Francois Tombalbaye and its contribution to the rise to power of Hissene Habre, one of Africa's most notorious dictators.

Over twenty years this book has become the standard single-volume history of Africa for both students and general readers. Following the overarching theme of population changes, causes and consequences, it has been fully updated to incorporate developments and research findings for all periods to 2016.

This academic history of diamond mining in Kimberley is a major study of the beginning of South Africa's mineral revolution. It includes an analysis of the formation of De Beers Consolidated Mines, one of the most successful companies ever to have been established in Africa.

In this pioneering book, Phyllis Martin opens up a new field of African research: the leisure activities of urban Africans. Her comprehensive study investigates the ways in which recreational activities, such as football and music, built social networks, humanised daily life and forged new identities.

Essays, from an African perspective, on the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa.

This is the first comprehensive and fully documented history of modern Tanganyika (mainland Tanzania), dealing mainly with the colonial period. It draws on the latest research and on evidence available from African and European records in Tanzania, Britain and Germany.

Wa and the Wala is the first full study of Wala history and society. The author pays particular attention to relations between the Muslim and non-Muslim elements in its population, and examines the impact of Zabarima, Samorian, British and French intrusions into Wala affairs.

This is the first published account of the role played by ideas of honour in African history from the fourteenth century to the present day. It argues that appreciation of these ideas is essential to an understanding of past and present African behaviour.

The Ngwa region lies in the heart of the Nigerian palm belt. Palm oil is one of the oldest foodstuffs of the region and has also been an export crop, produced mainly by women, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. This 1988 book describes the rise and fall of the oil palm export industry.

This substantial and thoroughly documented book is a political biography of an important figure in Sierra Leone. It is also a comment on two of the major themes of the country's history - the relations between the Colony (Krio society) and the Protectorate (the earlier inhabitants of the territory) and, more importantly, the position of the imperial regime vis-a-vis its colonial subjects.

This book focuses upon the wartime experiences of black people, and to examine the war in the context of a complex and rapidly changing colonial society increasingly shaped, but not yet transformed, by mining capital.

This study examines the role of cowrie-shell money in West African trade, particularly the slave trade. Over a large part of West Africa they became the regular market currency, but then disappeared almost totally, except during the depression of the 1930s, and occasionally in the markets of remote frontier districts.

The Politics of Harmony analyses how traditional ruling elites in Swaziland, as in other parts of Africa, use harmony ideologies to downplay and resolve land disputes. This book is unusual in its focus on political rather than economic dimensions of land tenure disputes.

This history of African motherhood over the longue duree demonstrates that it was, ideologically and practically, central to social, economic, cultural and political life. The book explores how people in the North Nyanzan societies of Uganda used an ideology of motherhood to shape their communities. More than biology, motherhood created essential social and political connections that cut across patrilineal and cultural-linguistic divides. The importance of motherhood as an ideology and a social institution meant that in chiefdoms and kingdoms queen mothers were powerful officials who legitimated the power of kings. This was the case in Buganda, the many kingdoms of Busoga, and the polities of Bugwere. By taking a long-term perspective from c.700 to 1900 CE and using an interdisciplinary approach - drawing on historical linguistics, comparative ethnography, and oral traditions and literature, as well as archival sources - this book shows the durability, mutability and complexity of ideologies of motherhood in this region.

Rwanda has become a touchstone case in genocide studies. This study evaluates the myriad theories behind the genocide. Combining original field data with some of the best existing evidence, it offers a rigorous and comprehensive explanation of how and why the genocide occurred, and how and why so many Rwandans participated in it.

Toby Green has written the first full and best documented account of the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His book shows which African peoples suffered most and why, as well as the effect this had on societies both in Africa and in the colonies of the New World.

Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival shows how, in the era of African political independence, cosmopolitan Christian converts struggled with East Africa's patriots over the definition of culture and community. The book traces the history of the East African Revival, an evangelical movement that spread through much of eastern and central Africa. Its converts offered a subversive reading of culture, disavowing their compatriots and disregarding their obligations to kin. They earned the ire of East Africa's patriots, who worked to root people in place as inheritors of ancestral wisdom. This book casts religious conversion in a new light: not as an inward reorientation of belief, but as a political action that opened up novel paths of self-narration and unsettled the inventions of tradition.

Develops an African indigenous discourse paradigm for interpreting and understanding literary and cultural materials. This work is suitable for scholars and students of African culture and literature.

Essays, from an African perspective, on the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa.

Focusing on the politics of democratization in Africa, this book details the strategic choices of the political elite, both incumbent and opposition, within the context of transition politics.

This book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during the 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. Branch explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict's conclusion.

This book discusses the minority status of African immigrants in the New World by revisiting the concept of a 'new' African diaspora and its multiple implications for citizenship and immigration policy.

This social and economic history of Mauritius, from French colonization in 1721 to the mid-1930s, describes changing relationships between different elements in the society, slave, free and maroon, and East Indian indentured populations. First published in 1999, it brings the Mauritian case to the attention of scholars of slavery and plantation systems.