South Africa's current political upheavals are the most significant since the transition from apartheid. Its powerful trade unions are playing a central role, and the political direction they take will have huge significance for how we understand the role of labour movements in struggles for social justice in the twenty-first century.

Rick Turner was one of South Africa's most original and powerful thinkers and is remembered today as a remarkable teacher and activist. For almost ten years, from 1968, when he returned to South Africa from his studies at the Sorbonne, to 1978, when he was shot by an unknown assassin, Rick Turner played an important role in the opposition to apartheid, especially by provoking whites to expand their vision of what South Africa could be. Believing in the 'necessity of utopian thinking', he wrote a short book, The eye of the needle (1972), that sought to envision a very different kind of society. It has become a classic of its kind. For the authorities Rick Turner was a constant source of annoyance, a threat and anomaly that had to be dealt with. What was most dangerous about him was that his life and thought failed to fit within the dominant narrative of his time. Never a member of the ANC or the Communist Party or any political party for that matter, he propounded a vision for the transformation of South Africa that was both independent and radical. Although he lived a short life, he nevertheless had a great influence on those around him, including people like Steve Biko, and had a profound effect on people's imagining of what was possible. In the end, he became too much for the apartheid system and was killed. Even today, in the severely compromised political climate after the end of apartheid, the need for the kind of idealist vision that Rick Turner lived and died for is perhaps just as urgent.

How did Tunisia succeed in eliminating the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism? Borowiec examines the actions, which begin with the removal of the senile President Habib Bourguiba in 1987, known in Tunisia as the change. Today, while its next door neighbor, Algeria, is in the midst of an upheaval threatening modernization and a secular government, Tunisia is the only Muslim country to ban polygamy and to introduce state-funded contraception. Borowiec begins by sketching Tunisia's history from the Phoenician era onward. He provides a detailed analysis of the country's Islamic movement, and then examines the efforts of Bourguiba's successor, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to liberalize the economy, foster a Western orientation, and make education accessible to all. Interviews with leading government officials as well as educators, writers, and average Tunisians puts a human face on a process that may allow Tunisia to make the transition to become a young developed nation at the beginning of the next millennium. This book is important to scholars, researchers, and the general public concerned with events in North Africa and the Arab world.

Post-colonial South Asia and Africa invite comparison: along with their political boundaries, they inherited from colonial regimes administrative languages, a cluster of sovereign state institutions and modern economic nuclei. When they became independent, South Asian and African states were - for all their diversity - thrust into a common position in the international system, and embarked on a common history as 'emergent', 'non-aligned', 'developing nations'. This is the first book to offer a single-volume comparative history of postcolonial South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in the first generation since independence. South Asia and Africa After Independence draws together the political and economic history of these two regions, assessing the colonial impact, establishing breaks and continuities, and highlighting their diversity and interplay. Waites sets out a framework for analysing the first generation of post-colonial history, offering an interpretation of 'post-colonialism' as a historical phenomenon, and provocatively challenging us to re-think this term in relation to South Asian and African history. This book is an important reference for the study of global, world, African and South Asian history.

Explores the history of Britain's colonial army in West Africa, especially the experiences of ordinary soldiers recruited in the region. West African Soldiers in Britain's Colonial Army explores the complex and constantly changing experience of West African soldiers under British command in Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. Since cost and tropical disease limited the deployment of British metropolitan troops to the region, British colonial rule in West Africa depended heavily on locally recruited soldiers and their families. This force became Britain's largest colonial army in Sub-Saharan Africa. West African Soldiers looks at the development of this colonial military from the conquest era of the late nineteenth century to decolonization in the 1950s. Rather than describing the many battles fought by this army both regionally and overseas, and informed by the concept of military culture, the book looks at the broad and overlapping themes of identity, culture, daily life, and violence. Chapter topics include the enslaved origins of the force, military identities including the myth of martial races, religious life, visual symbols like uniforms and insignia, health care related to tropical and sexually transmitted diseases, the experience of army wives, disciplinary flogging, mutiny, day-to-day violence committed by troops, and the employment of former soldiers by the colonial state. Based on archival research in five countries, the book derives inspiration from previous work on ordinary African soldiers in the British and German colonies of East Africa and in French West Africa.

In an effort to restore its world-power status after the humiliation of defeat and occupation, France was eager to maintain its overseas empire at the end of the Second World War. Yet just fifteen years later France had decolonized, and by 1960 only a few small island territories remained under French control.The process of decolonization in Indochina and Algeria has been widely studied, but much less has been written about decolonization in France's largest colony, French West Africa. Here, the French approach was regarded as exemplary -- that is, a smooth transition successfully managed by well intentioned French politicians and enlightened African leaders. Overturning this received wisdom, Chafer argues that the rapid unfurling of events after the Second World War was a complex , piecemeal and unpredictable process, resulting in a 'successful decolonization' that was achieved largely by accident. At independence, the winners assumed the reins of political power, while the losers were often repressed, imprisoned or silenced.This important book challenges the traditional dichotomy between 'imperial' and 'colonial' history and will be of interest to students of imperial and French history, politics and international relations, development and post-colonial studies.

Looks at the political and social history of the Gold Coast in West Africa from the early 16th century to the second half of the 18th. The book examines how political entities in Nzema were structured territorially, as well as the formation of ruling groups and aspects of their political, economic, and military actions.

This is a valuable scholarly analysis of the ways that the practices of three members of the Basel Mission (Evangelische Missionsgesellschaft Basel)-Andreas Riis (1804-1854), Rosine Widmann (1828-1909), and Carl Christian Reindorf (1834-1917)-informed the nineteenth-century mission field of the Gold Coast between the years 1832-1895. This study is based upon the original handwritten documents of these three missionaries, which are housed in the Basel Mission Archive in Basel, Switzerland. The book is located within the larger discipline of postcolonial studies, and more particularly within the framework of Tzvetan Todorov's discussion of 'signs' in his 1984 work The Conquest of America. The study also is set against the backdrop of the important theories on missions in the writings of Schleiermacher, Fabri, and Warneck. A significant contribution made by this study is that it contains the first discussion of the female German missionary Rosine Widmann, who serves as a kind of example of the then current Missionsfrauen. This book leads to a better understanding of the Gold Coast, and makes important contributions to scholarship in the fields of mission studies, German historical theology, German studies, and African studies.

The future of mining in South Africa is hotly contested. Wide-ranging views from multiple quarters rarely seem to intersect, placing emphasis on different questions without engaging in holistic debate.

This book aims to catalyse change by gathering together fragmented views into unifying conversations. It highlights the importance of debating the future of mining in South Africa and for reaching consensus in other countries across the mineral-dependent globe.

It covers issues such as the potential of platinum to spur industrialisation, land and dispossession on the platinum belt, the roles of the state and capital in mineral development, mining in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the experiences of women in and affected by mining since the late 19th century and mine worker organising: history and lessons and how post-mine rehabilitation can be tackled.

It was inspired not only by an appreciation of South Africa’s extensive mineral endowments, but also by a realisation that, while the South African mining industry performs relatively well on many technical indicators, its management of broader social issues leaves much to be desired. It needs to be deliberated whether the mining industry can play as critical a role going forward as it did in the evolution of the country’s economy.

This study is the first comprehensive assessment of warfare in Angola to cover all three phases of the nation's modern history: the anti-colonial struggle, the Cold War phase, and the post-Cold War era. It also covers, in detail, the final phase of warfare in Angola, culminating in Jonas Savimbi's death and the signing of the Luena Accord

Holocene Saharans addresses issues of continuity and change in past life-ways as well as radical shifts in techniques, innovation and achievements of the Saharan people during the Holocene period, the last 10,000 years. The project is accomplished through a series of precise case studies, each addressing a topical space-time problem. The key pre-occupation linking the case studies is a concern with the replicability of research protocols and the testability of suggested results. The anthropological perspective advocated in this book is anchored on the investigation of dynamic processes that have shaped the archaeological record and the evolution of past Saharan societies. The approach delineated is a broad one and does not focus exclusively on any one of the many conflicting approaches currently debated by archaeologists. Theoretical issues are systematically woven with the empirical record and consistently tested, supported or refuted with hard archaeological facts.

Benin is now perceived of as a model of democracy in Africa because it has successfully established a democratic political system based on consensus and regular and fair elections, and it continues to improve its electoral and parliamentary systems. Since its democracy it has taken important steps towards laying the foundation for the rule of law by establishing stable political institutions that can withstand the test of time. It has also engaged in an important legal, institutional, and regulatory reform to establish a more favorable environment for private initiative. The fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Benin covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 900 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Benin.

The history of European expansion overseas also includes the history of the expansion of concepts and principles of European law into the non-European world. The values and ideas it expressed have, to this day, deeply influenced indigenous societies and governments. At the same time indigenous concepts of law were 'discovered' and codified by European scholars. The outcome of this was a complex and intense interaction between European and local concepts of law, which resulted in many dual legal systems in the African and Asian colonies and which is examined in this volume by prominent historians, lawyers and legal anthropologists.

In this transnational account of black protest, Nicholas Grant examines how African Americans engaged with, supported, and were inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Bringing black activism into conversation with the foreign policy of both the U.S. and South African governments, this study questions the dominant perception that U.S.-centered anticommunism decimated black international activism. Instead, by tracing the considerable amount of time, money, and effort the state invested into responding to black international criticism, Grant outlines the extent to which the U.S. and South African governments were forced to reshape and occasionally reconsider their racial policies in the Cold War world. This study shows how African Americans and black South Africans navigated transnationally organized state repression in ways that challenged white supremacy on both sides of the Atlantic. The political and cultural ties that they forged during the 1940s and 1950s are testament to the insistence of black activists in both countries that the struggle against apartheid and Jim Crow were intimately interconnected.

Bronwen Everill offers a new perspective on African global history, applying a comparative approach to freed slave settlers in Sierra Leone and Liberia to understand their role in the anti-slavery colonization movements of Britain and America.

According to some estimates, Africa will soon have the highest concentration of Christians in the world. But African Christianity has had a long and conflicted history. Even today, modern misinterpretations of Scripture argue for God's curse upon the dark-skinned peoples of Africa. In this comprehensive study, Keith Burton traces the story of biblical Africa and the place of the Bible in the land of Ham. Beginning with the Old Testament, he explores the geography of biblical Africa and moves beyond stereotypical discussions of African ethnicity and identity. He then chronicles the African presence in the church from the New Testament onward, paying particular attention to the growth of Islam in Africa as well as the impact of European colonialism and the slave trade. Coming to the modern era, he examines the achievements of African Christianity and visionary efforts to adapt and reclaim Christianity for the African context. Burton invites readers to discover anew the relevance of the biblical narrative for African Christians as well as Scripture's influence on African Christianity. This invigorating work places the story of the Bible and African Christianity in a wider global context and challenges readers to think differently about history and the biblical world.

This book analyzes the development of indigenous religious, commercial, and political institutions among the Oromo mainly during the relatively peaceful two centuries in its history, from 1704 to 1882. The largest ethnic group in East Africa, the Oromo promoted peace, cultural assimilation, and ethnic integration.

The history of the often-overlooked chewa Ethiopian warriors and their crucial role in defending their homeland against invasion, as well as their strong influence on political identity and the social infrastructure. Today best known for their role in defending Ethiopia from Italian invasion 1935-41, chewa warriors protected Ethiopia for centuries. Yet, depicted by some 19th-century Western observers as little more than "a horde" of warmongers, and later suppressed by Ethiopian monarchs who sought to create a centralized modern state, their contribution has been neglected. Drawing on oral and written sources, as well as the zeraf poetry through which theyexpressed themselves, this book explores for the first time in depth the history, practices and principles of warriorhood of the chewa, and their wider influence on society and state. Often self-trained individuals who began by defending their communities, by the end of the 19th century there were chewa warrior groups from almost all linguistic groups who fought together to resist foreign invaders. Some chewa enrolled in the service of the Ethiopian "kings of kings", who organized them as named corps that supplemented the formal defence of the state. Today, chewa political identity, which transcended social, familial, political and other groupings, remains deeply rooted in Ethiopian society. Tsehai Berhane-Selassie taught Social Anthropology, Gender and Development Studies in universities in Ethiopia, the UK, the USA and Ireland. She is a former member of The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Her publications include editing Gender Issues in Ethiopia.

In Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850 - 1913, Lindsay Frederick Braun explores the technical processes and struggles surrounding the creation and maintenance of boundaries and spaces in South Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The precision of surveyors and other colonial technicians lent these enterprises an illusion of irreproachable objectivity and authority, even though the reality was far messier. Using a wide range of archival and printed materials from survey departments, repositories, and libraries, the author presents two distinct episodes of struggle over lands and livelihoods, one from the Eastern Cape and one from the former northern Transvaal. These cases expose the contingencies, contests, and negotiations that fundamentally shaped these changing South African landscapes.

The story is set during the closing years of the eighteenth dynasty in ancient Egypt. It covers the rise of an ambitious child of a farmer, as he successfully climbs the ladder of power, until he wears the crown of the Pharaoh of all Egypt. During his rise, the novel tries to follow the accepted history of the known rulers. We meet Akhenaton and Nefertiti, Tutankhamen, and Ankhesenamun, and also Horemheb and Mutnedjmet. Many more known and unknown characters appear as we tie the story together. There is intrigue, treachery, and murder, as well as love, sadness, and joy. It's a bit of a saga as individuals come and go. This era of Egyptian history, for all of its study, has many blanks, and this story attempts to fill them in. It is my hope that you will read it with interest and pleasure.