Kipyego Cheluget and Stephen Wright evaluate the legacy of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta.Following a nationalist uprising and brutal colonial repression, Kenya became independent in December 1963. With much of the agricultural land still under European settler control, Jomo Kenyatta promoted foreign and security policies to balance Kenyan, African, and settler interests, attracting foreign investment into the new country. Kenyatta's programs, however, favo...

As a spokesman for a country, a continent and the developing world, Thabo Mbeki played a crucial role in world politics, but to many people he remained an enigma throughout his presidency. Is this simply because he was a secretive man, or were there complicated political factors at play? Who was the real Mbeki?In this book, multiple-award-winning journalist William Mervin Gumede chronicles Mbeki’s spectacular rise to dominate Africa’s oldest liberation movement. He explores the com...

“[O]ne of the most original and important books on Africa in years.”—Financial Times“Challenges outdated narratives and makes a compelling case for the continent's economic potential.”—Bill GatesThe acclaimed author of How Asia Works brings his “pithy, well-written and intellectually vigorous” (Financial Times) reporting to Africa, revealing essential, promising lessons about the engines of economic growth...

'A superb book...genuinely innovative' Jack Spence OBE, King's College LondonOver 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 ...

Africa should accept that its present malaise is largely due to its own mistakes: greed, poor policies and a lack of leadership. Blaming colonialism for Africa’s failings belongs to the past. Africa has been lessed with great wealth, but where has this wealth gone? Why are so many countries in need of aid? And why has this wealth not filtered down to poor people? Elly Twineyo-Kamugisha surveys African governments, aid agencies and the private sector and provides surprising insights into wh...

Since independence from Great Britain in 1963, Kenya has survived five decades as a functioning nation-state, holding regular elections; its borders and political system intact and avoiding open war with its neighbours and military rule internally. It has been a favoured site for Western aid, trade, investment and tourism and has remained a close security partner for Western governments. However, Kenya's successive governments have failed to achieve adequate living conditions for most of i...

This book seeks to trace and evaluate the performance of various mechanisms established by the African Union since its inception in 1963 to manage the current African situation. This work cites different case studies such as Burundi, the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

When the southern African country of Rhodesia was reborn as Zimbabwe in 1980, democracy advocates celebrated the defeat of a white supremacist regime and the end of colonial rule. Zimbabwean crowds cheered their new prime minister, freedom fighter Robert Mugabe, with little idea of the misery he would bring them. Under his leadership for the next 30 years, Zimbabwe slid from self-sufficiency into poverty and astronomical inflation. The government once praised for its magnanimity and ethnic...

The liberation movements of Southern Africa arose to combat racism, colonialism and settler capitalism and engaged in armed struggle to establish democracy. After victory over colonial and white minority regimes, they moved into government embodying the hopes and aspirations of their mass of supporters and of widespread international solidarity movements. Even with the difficult legacies they inherited, their performance in power has been deeply disappointing. Roger Southall tracks the exp...

South Africas democratic transformation in 1994 captured the attention of the international community. Politics: South Africa provides an acute appraisal of the critical moments in the history of South Africa, and examines the political environment in the years following the shift to democracy.Under the leadership of the revered figure of Nelson Mandela, the rainbow nation achieved the transition with less violence than had been feared. A new generation of post-Apartheid y...

This incisive, deeply informed book introduces post-apartheid South Africa to an international audience. South Africa has a history of racism and white supremacy. This crushing historical burden continues to resonate today. Under President Jacob Zuma, South Africa is treading water. Nevertheless, despite calls to undermine the 1994 political settlement characterized by human rights guarantees and the rule of law, distinguished diplomat John Campbell argues that the country’s future is brig...

As a key liberation leader in exile, Mbeki was instrumental in his party’s anti-apartheid struggle. During the South African transition, he helped build one of the world’s most respected constitutional democracies. As president, despite some successes, he was unable to overcome South Africa’s inherited socioeconomic challenges, and his disastrous AIDS policies will remain a major blotch in his legacy.