Decolonizing Independence

This book charts the previously untold story of the mobility of Indigenous peoples across vast distances, vividly reshaping what is known about decolonisation.

Even before it gained independence in 1960, the process of nation-building in Nigeria was plagued by regional, ethnic, and class conflict. Decolonizing Independence: Statecraft in Nigeria’s First Republic and Israeli Interventions examines how many of the leading figures of what would become Nigeria’s First Republic (1963–1966) formed relations with Israel to help navigate the challenges of statecraft and development. As Nigeria transitioned to independence, the dealings between its political elite and Israeli diplomats helped advance the ideological aspirations, economic ventures, development schemes, and political agendas that defined the era. Moving beyond the familiar history of Nigeria’s struggle with former colonizer Britain, Decolonizing Independence uses Israeli-Nigerian diplomatic relations to provide a novel window into the political cultures, ideologies, and leadership strategies that shaped statecraft in Nigeria. Tracing the events and dynamics that increasingly ensnared Israel in the smoldering political landscape of the First Republic, this volume sheds light on the postcolonial imaginaries of the Nigerian elite as they attempted to lead a divided nation through the process of decolonization.

A truly satisfactory history of Rhodesia, one that takes into account both the African history and that of the whites, has never been written. That is, until now. In this book Luise White highlights the crucial tension between Rhodesia as it imagined itself and Rhodesia as it was imagined outside the country. Using official documents, novels, memoirs, and conversations with participants in the events taking place between 1965, when Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain, and 1980 when indigenous African rule was established through the creation of the state of Zimbabwe, White reveals that Rhodesians represented their state as a kind of utopian place where white people dared to stand up for themselves and did what needed to be done. It was imagined to be a place vastly better than the decolonized dystopias to its north. In all these representations, race trumped all else including any notion of nation. Outside Rhodesia, on the other hand, it was considered a white supremacist utopia, a country that had taken its own independence rather than let white people live under black rule. Even as Rhodesia edged toward majority rule to end international sanctions and a protracted guerilla war, racialized notions of citizenship persisted. One man, one vote, became the natural logic of "decolonization” of this illegally "independent” minority-ruled renegade state. Voter qualification with its minutia of which income was equivalent to how many years of schooling, and how African incomes or years of schooling could be rendered equivalent to whites’, illustrated the core of ideas about, and experiences of, racial domination. White’s account of the politics of decolonization in this unprecedented historical situation reveals much about the general processes occurring elsewhere on the African continent.

"Even before it gained independence in 1960, the process of nation-building in Nigeria was plagued by regional, ethnic, and class conflict. Decolonizing Independence examines how leading figures of what would become Nigeria's First Republic (1963-1966) formed relations with Israel to help navigate the challenges of statecraft and development"--

The Cold War and decolonization transformed the twentieth century world. This volume brings together an international line-up of experts to explore how these transformations took place and expand on some of the latest threads of analysis to help inform our understanding of the links between the two phenomena. The book begins by exploring ideas of modernity, development, and economics as Cold War and postcolonial projects and goes on to look at the era's intellectual history and investigate how emerging forms of identity fought for supremacy. Finally, the contributors question ideas of sovereignty and state control that move beyond traditional Cold War narratives. Decolonization and the Cold War emphasizes new approaches by drawing on various methodologies, regions, themes, and interdisciplinary work, to shed new light on two topics that are increasingly important to historians of the twentieth century.

Belize, a small British colony in Central America faced with a territorial claim and military threats from neighboring Guatemala, overcame disadvantages of size and power by implementing a strategy of internationalization that utilized new international norms and international organizations, in particular the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations. This book, written by a key player in the independence struggle, details the history of the territorial claim and of the international campaign that made it possible for Belize to achieve secure independence with all its territory despite pressures from Britain and the United States to cede land and compromise its sovereignty.

The process of decolonization, the development of the nationalist movement, and the salient aspects of the emerging post-independence policy in the Congo since 1954 are studied. Special emphasis is given to the forces set loose by the Leopoldville explosion. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Almost universally, newly independent states make the production of new maps and atlases affirming their independence and identity a top priority, but the processes and practices by which previously colonized peoples become more engaged or re-engaged in mapping their own territories are rarely straightforward. This collection explores the relationship between mapping and decolonization while engaging recent theoretical debates about the nature of decolonization itself. The essays, originally delivered as the 2010 Kenneth Nebenzahl Jr. Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, encompass more than two centuries (from the late eighteenth through the twentieth) and three continents (Latin America, Africa, and Asia). Topics range from mapping and national identity in late colonial Mexico to the enduring crisis created by the partition of British India and the persistence of racial prejudices and the racialized organization of space in apartheid and postapartheid South Africa.