The comparison of early Italy's and Japan's colonialism is without precedence. The majority of studies on Italian and Japanese expansion refer to the 1930-1940s period (fascist/totalitarian era) when Japan annexed Manchuria (1931) and Italy Ethiopia (1936). The first formative and crucial steps that paved the way for this expansion have been neglected. This analysis covers a range of social, political and economic parameters illuminating the diversity but also the common ground of the nature and aspirations of Japan's and Italy's early colonial systems. The two states alongside the Great Powers of the era expanded in the name of humanism and civilization but in reality in a way typically imperialistic, they sought territorial compensations, financial privileges and prestige. A parallel and deeper understanding of the nineteenth century socio-cultural-psychological parameters, such as tradition, mentality, and religion that shaped and explain the later ideological framework of Rome's and Tokyo's expansionist disposition, has never been attempted before. This monograph offers a detailed examination of the phenomenon of colonialism by examining the issue from two different angles. The study contributes to the understanding of Italy's and Japan's early imperial expansion. In addition, it traces the origins of these states' similar and common historical evolution in late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.

A magisterial history of South Africa, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present.

Leonard Thompson, a leading scholar in southern African history and politics, provides a fresh and penetrating exploration of the country's history, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present, focusing primarily on experiences of its black inhabitants.

The Fourth Edition of this classic text brings South Africa's history up to date with a new chapter chronicling the first presidential term of Mbeki and ending with the funeral of Nelson Mandela.

Systems of belonging, including ethnicity, are not static, automatic, or free of contest. Historical contexts shape the ways which we are included in or excluded from specific classifications. Building on an amazing array of sources, David L. Schoenbrun examines groupwork-the imaginative labor that people do to constitute themselves as communities-in an iconic and influential region in East Africa. His study traces the roots of nationhood in the Ganda state over the course of a millennia, demonstrating that the earliest clans were based not on political identity or language but on shared investments, knowledges, and practices. Grounded in Schoenbrun's skillful mastery of historical linguistics and vernacular texts, The Names of the Python supplements and redirects current debates about ethnicity in ex-colonial Africa and beyond. This timely volume carefully distinguishes past from present and shows the many possibilities that still exist for the creative cultural imagination.

Various African nations have undergone conflict situations since they gained their independence. This book focuses on particular countries that have faced conflict (civil wars and genocide) and are now in the process of rebuilding their political, economic, social, and educational institutions. The countries that are addressed in the book include: Rwanda, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, there is a chapter that addresses the role of the African Diaspora in conflict and post-conflict countries that include Eritrea, Liberia, and Somalia. The book includes an examination of the various actors who are involved in post-conflict rebuilding and reconstruction that involves internal and external participants. For example, it is clear that the internal actors involve Africans themselves as ordinary citizens, members of local and national governments, and members of non-governmental organizations. This allows the reader to understand the agency and empowerment of Africans in post-conflict reconstruction. Various institutions are addressed within the context of the roles they play in establishing governance organizations such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone, the African Union, chiefs in Liberia, and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, the external actors who are involved in post-conflict reconstruction are examined such as international non-governmental organizations and the African Diaspora. They both have their own constituents and agendas and can and do play a positive and negative role in post-conflict reconstruction. It is obvious that countries that are addressed in the book are in dire need of financial assistant to rebuild much needed infrastructure that was destroyed during the conflict. All of the countries covered in the book need schools, medical facilities, roads, bridges, airports, ports, and the government does not have the money to provide these. This is where the international non-governmental organizations and the African Diaspora play an important role. The chapters that address these issues are cognizant of their importance and at the same time, the authors realize that sovereignty can be undermined if Africans are not in the forefront of policy and decision making that will determine their future. There are chapters that provide a gendered analysis of post-conflict when it is appropriate. For example, it is clear that women, men, boys, and girls experienced conflict in different ways because of their gender. They all participated in the conflict in various ways. Consequently, the efforts at peace building are given a gendered analysis in terms of what has happened to women and girls in the demobilization and rehabilitation period including an excellent analysis of land reform in Rwanda and how that affects women and members of a certain ethnic group that are often overlooked in the examination of the 1994 genocide. This book provides a very good contribution to the literature on conflict and post-conflict African countries because of its depth and the vast topics it embraces. It provides an analysis of the internal and external actors, the role of gender in post-conflict decision making, and it provides the voices of ordinary Africans who were affected by the conflict, and who are determined to live productive lives.

For every gallon of ink that has been spilt on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its consequences, only one very small drop has been spent on the study of the forced migration of black Africans into the Mediterranean world of Islam. From the ninth to the early twentieth century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. Yet their story has not yet been told. This book provides an introduction to this ""other"" slave trade, and to the Islamic cultural context within which it took place, as well as the effect this context had on those who were its victims. After an introductory essay, there are sections on Basic Texts (Qur'an and Hadith), Some Muslim Views on Slavery, Slavery and the Law, Perceptions of Africans in Some Arabic and Turkish Writings, Slave Capture, the Middle Passage, Slave Markets, Eunuchs and Concubines, Domestic Service, Military Service, Religion and Community, Freedom and Post-Slavery, and the Abolition of Slavery. A concluding segment provides a first-person account of the capture, transportation, and service in a Saharan oasis by a West African male, as related to a French official in the 1930s.

This is a collection of key essays about the Akan Peoples, their history and culture. The Akans are an ethnic group in West Africa, predominately Ghana and Togo, of roughly 25 million people. From the twelfth century on, Akans created numerous states based largely on gold mining and trading of cash crops. This brought wealth to numerous Akan states, such as Akwamu, which stretched all the way to modern Benin, and ultimately led to the rise of the best known Akan empire, the Empire of Ashanti. Throughout history, Akans were a highly educated group; notable Akan people in modern times include Kwame Nkrumah and Kofi Annan. This volume features a new array of primary sources that provide fresh and nuanced perspectives. This collection is the first of its kind.

Die sewende boek in Karel Schoeman se reeks oor die VOC-tydperk aan die Kaap die Goeie Hoop handel oor die tyd toe Ryk Tulbagh goewerneur van die Kaap was. Min is bekend oor Tulbagh se lewe in Nederland en oor die persoonlike aspekte van die man wat bekend was as “Vader Tulbagh, maar Schoeman slaag daarin om uit argivale en gepubliseerde bronne die Kaap tydens sy bewind lewe te gee. In die eerste groep hoofstukke word veral gekonsentreer op die Kompanjie en sy werksaamhede: die skeepvaart in en om Tafelbaai, die Kasteel as die sentrum van gesag aan die Kaap en die amptenary wat die werksaamhede van die VOC vlot moes laat verloop en verantwoordelik vir die handhawing van orde in die klein kolonie was. In die volgende hoofstuk word die nedersetting in die Tafelvallei bespreek, wat in Tulbagh se tyd al redelik dig bevolk was. Daarna kom die Liesbeekvallei en die uitbreiding van die kolonie na die Boland en nedersettings soos Stellenbosch, die Drakensteinvallei en die Wagenmakersvallei aan die orde. Volgens prof. O.J.O. Ferreira bewys hierdie werk dat Karel Schoeman tans die voorste kenner van die Kaapse kultuurgeskiedenis is: “Met sy deeglike navorsing, onderhoudende skyfstyl en raak aanvoeling vir dit wat die leser sal interesseer, het Schoeman ’n brok Suid-Afrikaanse kultuurgeskiedenis daargestel wat deur huidige en toekomstige geslagte historici, kultuurhistorici en gewone lesers met groot vrug as bron van inligting gebruik kan word, maar bowenal aan hulle ’n uitsonderlik genotvolle leeservaring sal verskaf.

Touts is a historical account of the troubled formation of a colonial labor market in the Gulf of Guinea and a major contribution to the historiography of indentured labor, which has relatively few reference points in Africa. The setting is West Africa's largest island, Fernando Po or Bioko in today's Equatorial Guinea, 100 kilometers off the coast of Nigeria. The Spanish ruled this often-ignored island from the mid-nineteenth century until 1968. A booming plantation economy led to the arrival of several hundred thousand West African, principally Nigerian, contract workers on steamships and canoes. In Touts, Enrique Martino traces the confusing transition from slavery to other labor regimes, paying particular attention to the labor brokers and their financial, logistical, and clandestine techniques for bringing workers to the island. Martino combines multi-sited archival research with the concept of touts as "lumpen-brokers" to offer a detailed study of how commercial labor relations could develop, shift and collapse through the recruiters' own techniques, such as large wage advances and elaborate deceptions. The result is a pathbreaking reconnection of labor mobility, contract law, informal credit structures and exchange practices in African history.

This book assesses South African history within imperial and global networks of power, trade and communication. South African modernity is understood in terms of the interplay between internal and external forces. Key historical themes, including the emergence of an industrialised economy, the development of systematic racial discrimination and popular resistance against racial power, and the influence of national and ethnic identities on political and social organisation, are set out in relation to imperial and global influences. This book is central to our understanding of South Africa in the context of world history.

The defeat of Apartheid and triumph of non-racial democracy in South Africa was not the work of just a few individuals. Ultimately, it came about through the actions – large and small – of many principled, courageous people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

Some of these activists achieved enduring fame and recognition and their names today loom large in the annals of the anti-apartheid struggle. Others were engaged in a range of practical, hands-on activities outside of the public eye. These were the loyal foot soldiers of the liberation Struggle, the unsung workers at the coal face who, largely behind the scenes, made a difference on the ground and helped to bring about meaningful change.

Even though Apartheid was aimed at entrenching white power and privilege, a number of whites rejected that system and instead joined their fellow South Africans in opposing it. Of these, a noteworthy proportion came from the Jewish community.

Mensches in the Trenches tells the hitherto unrecorded stories of some of these activists and the essential, if seldom publicised role that they and others like them played in bringing freedom and justice to their country.

This collection of essays demonstrates how chronic state failure and the inability of the international community to provide a solution to the conflict in Somalia has had transnational repercussions. Following the failed humanitarian mission in 1992-93, most countries refrained from any direct involvement in Somalia, but this changed in the 2000s with the growth of piracy and links to international terrorist organizations. The deterritorialization of the conflict quickly became apparent as it became transnational in nature. In part because of it lacked a government and was unable to work with the international community, Somalia came to be seen as a "testing-ground" by many international actors. Globalizing Somalia demonstrates how China, Japan, and the EU, among others, have all used the conflict in Somalia to project power, test the bounds of the national constitution, and test their own military capabilities. Contributed by international scholars and experts, the work examines the impact of globalization on the internal and external dynamics of the conflict, arguing that it is no longer geographically contained. By bringing together the many actors and issues involved, the book fills a gap in the literature as one of the most complete works on the conflict in Somalia to date. It will be an essential text to any student interested in Somalia and the horn of Africa, as well as in terrorism, and conflict processes.

Every nation is called to have equilibrium between culture and progress, to defeat the struggle for Post-modernism and to reach structure renovation. In this book I describe the story of the Angolan People, starting on their cultural roots, their difficult fight for independence, darkened by the civil war, and the arrival of peace agreements. I identify some important factors in the deep struggle to make it to their dream of becoming a free and prosperous country.