The Politics Of African Diplomacy And Decolonization

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation. Through an examination of the Anglo-American relationship, the book reveals how the UN helped position this event as a lightning rod in debates about how decolonisation interacted with the Cold War. By examining the ways in which the various dimensions of the UN came into play in Anglo-American considerations of how to handle the Congo crisis, the book reveals how the Congo debate reverberated in wider ideological struggles about how decolonisation evolved and what the role of the UN would be in managing this process. The UN became a central battle ground for ideas and visions of world order; as the newly-independent African and Asian states sought to redress the inequalities created by colonialism, the US and UK sought to maintain the status quo, while the Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld tried to reconcile these two contrasting views.

The 'Rhodesian crisis' of the 1960s and 1970s, and the early-1980s crisis of independent Zimbabwe, can be understood against the background of Cold War historical transformations brought on by, among other things, African decolonization in the 1960s; the failure of American power in Vietnam and the rise of Third World political power. In this history of the diplomacy of decolonization in Zimbabwe, Timothy Scarnecchia examines the rivalry between Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, and shows how both leaders took advantage of Cold War racialized thinking about what Zimbabwe should be. Based on a wealth of archival source materials, Scarnecchia uncovers how foreign relations bureaucracies in the US, UK, and South Africa created a Cold War 'race state' notion of Zimbabwe that permitted them to rationalize Mugabe's state crimes in return for Cold War loyalty to Western powers. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

An introduction to African history and politics since decolonization, emphasising the political, economic and socio-economic diversity of the continent.

The problems investigated in this collection had lasting consequences not only in the field of colonialism but in international politics as well. Decolonization and the Cold War, which brought about the most significant changes to global policits after 1945, are treated together.

Jessica Lynne Pearson explores the collision between imperial and international visions of health and development in French Africa as postwar decolonization movements gained strength. The consequences of putting politics above public health continue to play out in constraints placed on international health organizations half a century later.

This book offers a continent-wide examination of Africa's foreign policy and diplomacy, addressing the relevance of its many languages, precolonial history, traditional value systems, and previous international relationships. African statehood predates that of Europe, as well as the rest of Western civilization, and yet by imposing Western values on Africa and its peoples, European colonialism destroyed Africa's paradigm of statehood along with its value systems that were ideally suited for this majestic continent. This two-volume book provides a comprehensive survey of the issues and events that have shaped Africa from remotest antiquity to the present, and serves as the foundation of Africa's international relations, diplomacy, and foreign policy. The first volume of African Foreign Policy and Diplomacy from Antiquity to the 21st Century discusses the determinants of Africa's diplomacy from antiquity to the 18th century; the second volume addresses the further developments of its foreign policy from the 19th to the 21st century.