Africa, Empire and World Disorder

Africa, Empire and World Disorder PDF Author: A. G. Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100016652X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This volume brings together important articles from the Cambridge historian A. G. Hopkins and reflect the enlargement and evolution of historical studies during the last half century. The essays cover four of the principal historiographical developments of the period: the extraordinary revolution that has led to the writing of non-Western indigenous history; the revitalization of new types of imperial history; the now ubiquitous engagement with global history, including a reinterpretation of American Empire, and the current revival of economic history after several decades of neglect.

Africa, Empire and World Disorder

Africa, Empire and World Disorder PDF Author: A. G. Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100016652X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book

Book Description
This volume brings together important articles from the Cambridge historian A. G. Hopkins and reflect the enlargement and evolution of historical studies during the last half century. The essays cover four of the principal historiographical developments of the period: the extraordinary revolution that has led to the writing of non-Western indigenous history; the revitalization of new types of imperial history; the now ubiquitous engagement with global history, including a reinterpretation of American Empire, and the current revival of economic history after several decades of neglect.

Capitalism in the Colonies

Capitalism in the Colonies PDF Author: A. G. Hopkins
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691258848
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
"A look into the Golden Age of African merchants at the end of the nineteenth century, through case studies in Lagos"--

Africa

Africa PDF Author: Guy Arnold
Publisher: Atlantic Books (UK)
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1106

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Book Description
Guy Arnold has specialised in African and Third World affairs for the last 40 years and is the author of books on these themes. In this text, he provides a landmark modern history of the world's most troubled and misunderstood continent. The end of the Second World War heralded the rapid end of European African empires. In 1945, only four African countries were independent; by 1963, thirty African states created the Organization of African Unity. Despite numerous problems, the 1960s were a time of optimism as Africans enjoyed their new independence. By the 1990s, however, the high hopes of the 1960s had been dashed. Dictatorships by strongmen, corruption, civil wars, genocide, widespread poverty, and the interventions and manipulations of the major world powers had all relegated Africa to the position of a Third World "basket case," the poorest and least-developed continent on the planet.

Empires in the Sun

Empires in the Sun PDF Author: Lawrence James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681774992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
The one hundred year history of how Europe coerced the African continent into its various empires—and the resulting story of how Africa succeeded in decolonization. In this dramatic (and often tragic) story of an era that radically changed the course of world history, Lawrence James investigates how, within one hundred years, Europeans persuaded and coerced Africa into becoming a subordinate part of the modern world. His narrative is laced with the experiences of participants and onlookers and introduces the men and women who, for better or worse, stamped their wills on Africa. The continent was a magnet for the high-minded, the adventurous, the philanthropic, the unscrupulous. Visionary pro-consuls rubbed shoulders with missionaries, explorers, soldiers, big-game hunters, entrepreneurs, and physicians. Between 1830 and 1945, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy and the United States exported their languages, laws, culture, religions, scientific and technical knowledge and economic systems to Africa. The colonial powers imposed administrations designed to bring stability and peace to a continent that appeared to lack both. The justification for occupation was emancipation from slavery—and the common assumption that late nineteenth-century Europe was the summit of civilization. By 1945 a transformed continent was preparing to take charge of its own affairs, a process of decolonization that took a quick twenty years. This magnificent history also pauses to ask: what did not happen and why?

Africa in the World

Africa in the World PDF Author: Frederick Cooper
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674369319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
At the Second World War’s end, it was clear that business as usual in colonized Africa would not resume. W. E. B. Du Bois’s The World and Africa, published in 1946, recognized the depth of the crisis that the war had brought to Europe, and hence to Europe’s domination over much of the globe. Du Bois believed that Africa’s past provided lessons for its future, for international statecraft, and for humanity’s mastery of social relations and commerce. Frederick Cooper revisits a history in which Africans were both empire-builders and the objects of colonization, and participants in the events that gave rise to global capitalism. Of the many pathways out of empire that African leaders envisioned in the 1940s and 1950s, Cooper asks why they ultimately followed the one that led to the nation-state, a political form whose limitations and dangers were recognized by influential Africans at the time. Cooper takes account of the central fact of Africa’s situation—extreme inequality between Africa and the western world, and extreme inequality within African societies—and considers the implications of this past trajectory for the future. Reflecting on the vast body of research on Africa since Du Bois’s time, Cooper corrects outdated perceptions of a continent often relegated to the margins of world history and integrates its experience into the mainstream of global affairs.

Empires of Intelligence

Empires of Intelligence PDF Author: Martin Thomas
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520251172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
'Empires of Intelligence' argues that colonial control in British and French empires depended on an elabroate security apparatus. Thomas shows the crucial role of intelligence gathering in maintaining imperial control in the years before decolonization.

American Empire in Global History

American Empire in Global History PDF Author: Shigeru Akita
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000530884
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This book shows how the predominantly national focus that characterises studies of the United States after 1783 can be integrated with global trends, as viewed from the perspective of imperial history. The book also argues that historians of European empires have much to gain by considering the United States after 1783 as a newly-decolonised country that acquired overseas territorial possessions in 1898 and remained a member of the Western ‘imperial club’ until the mid-twentieth century. The wide-ranging synthesis by A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (2018), provides the starting point for contributions that appraise its main theme and take it in new directions. The first three chapters identify fresh approaches to U.S. history between the Revolution and the Civil War, suggesting ways in which the United States can be considered as a newly-decolonised country, examining shifting meanings of the term ‘empire,’ and reassessing the character of continental expansion. The second group deals with initiatives and responses in the Philippines and Cuba, reconsidering the character of nationalism in two of the most important overseas territories that were either ruled directly or controlled indirectly by the United States, and placing it an international context. The third group examines the exercise of U.S. power in the twentieth century, identifying aspects of international law that have been overlooked and reviewing the extensive literature on the controversial themes of the Cold War and informal empire after 1945. The ten chapters in this edited volume bring together noted specialists on the history of international relations, the United States, and the insular empire it ruled in the twentieth century. The chapters were originally published as articles in a special issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire

Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire PDF Author: Mentan, Tatah
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956764094
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
Words like “colonialism” and “empire” were once frowned upon in the U.S. and other Western mainstream media as worn-out left-wing rhetoric that didn’t fit reality. Not anymore! Tatah Mentan observes that a growing chorus of right-wing ideologues, with close ties to the Western administrations’ war-making hawks in NATO, are encouraging Washington and the rest of Europe to take pride in the expansion of their power over people and nations around the globe. Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire is written from the perspective that the scholarly lives of academics researching on Africa are changing, constantly in flux and increasingly bound to the demands of Western colonial imperialism. This existential situation has forced the continent to morph into a tool in the hands of Colonial Empire. According to Tatah Mentan, the effects of this existential situation of Africa compel serious academic scrutiny. At the same time, inquiry into the African predicament has been changing and evolving within and against the rhythms of this “new normal” of Colonial Empire-Old or New. The author insists that the long and bloody history of imperial conquest that began with the dawn of capitalism needs critical scholarly examination. As Marx wrote in Capital: “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moment of primitive accumulation.” Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire is therefore a MUST-READ for faculty, students as well as policy makers alike in the changing dynamics of their profession, be it theoretically, methodologically, or structurally and materially.

Season of Rains

Season of Rains PDF Author: Stephen Ellis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226205592
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Africa is playing a more important role in world affairs than ever before. Yet the most common images of Africa in the American mind are ones of poverty, starvation, and violent conflict. But while these problems are real, that does not mean that Africa is a lost cause. Instead, as Stephen Ellis explains in Season of Rains, we need to rethink Africa’s place in time if we are to understand it in all its complexity—it is a region where growth and prosperity coexist with failed states. This engaging, accessible book by one of the world’s foremost researchers on Africa captures the broad spectrum of political, economic, and social foundations that make Africa what it is today. Ellis is careful not to position himself in the futile debate between Afro-optimists and Afro-pessimists. The forty-nine diverse nations that make up sub-Saharan Africa are neither doomed to fail nor destined to succeed. As he assesses the challenges of African sovereignties, Ellis is not under the illusion that governments will suddenly become more benevolent and less corrupt. Yet, he sees great dynamism in recent technological and economic developments. The proliferation of mobile phones alone has helped to overcome previous gaps in infrastructure, African retail markets are becoming integrated, and banking is expanding. Businesses from China and emerging powers from the West are investing more than ever before in the still land-rich region, and globalization is offering possibilities of enormous economic change for the growing population of one billion Africans, actively engaged in charting the future of their continent. This highly readable survey of the continent today offers an indispensable guide to how money, power, and development are shaping Africa’s future.

Russia and the New World Disorder

Russia and the New World Disorder PDF Author: Bobo Lo
Publisher: Brookings Inst Press
ISBN: 9780815726098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Led by the seemingly indomitable Vladimir Putin, Russia has strongly reasserted itself on the international stage. In the worldview of Putin and the Kremlin, the inevitable decline of the West and rise of the rest provides an opportunity for Russia to fulfill its mission as an independent center of global power. What are the origins of this increasingly aggressive stance? What are the geopolitical ramifications? And what will be the likely outcomes? In this timely and accessible work, former diplomat and renowned Russia analyst Bobo Lo examines the interplay between contemporary Russian foreign policy and a global environment that has rarely been more fluid and uncertain. Russia and the New World Disorder delves into Russian policy and geopolitics via three questions: • How do Russia's domestic politics and external operating environment influence the Kremlin's foreign policy? • How have policymakers in Moscow responded to that environment, and with what ramifications? • What are the prospects for change, continuity, or regression in Russian foreign policy over the next decade and beyond? Lo argues that Moscow's approach to regional and global affairs reflects the tension between two very different worlds. The Kremlin's belief in a weakened West and resurgent Russia is based on the reaffirmation of traditional principles of international politics: collective leadership by the major powers, the dominance of hard power, and the existence of spheres of influence. This idealized view, however, is the antithesis of the actual world that Russia faces today. It is defined by a new disorder that challenges many core assumptions. Its principal message is that only those states that embrace change will prosper. In this world, Russia is no longer able to rest on tradition and a sense of entitlement but must instead adapt to fluid international realities and redefine itself as a modern power. Which of these two diametrically opposed worlds will Russia ultimately choose? This book makes clear that the next ten to fifteen years will be critical in determining whether Russia plays a leading role in twenty-first-century politics, or ends up as one of the principal casualties of global transformation. Copublished with Chatham House