The construction of Africa as the other has meant that factors commonly used to explain war elsewhere have been neglected in SubSaharan Africa. The political power struggle which evolved around the state is at the forefront of the analysis of civil war and societal conflict. This text argues that African civil wars arise from political struggle rather than ethnic conflict. It aims to offer new perspectives on conflicts in Rawanda, Congo-Brazzaville, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Somalia. Taking a multidiscipliniary approach, the book examines these situations from political, philisophical, cultural, economic, historical, regional and international perspectives.

The two main arguments in the book are to contest the reduction of African civil wars to ethnic conflicts, and to point out the emergence of civil wars as the result of political struggles. The construction of Africa as the "other" has entailed that factors commonly used to explain war elsewhere have been neglected in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book aims at bringing the political power struggle as it evolves around the state to the forefront in analyses of civil wars and societal conflict.

The book examines, among other issues, the emergence of civil war as a result of political struggles. The construction of Africa as the 'other' has meant that factors commonly used to explain war elsewhere have been neglected in SubSaharan Africa. The political power struggle which evolved around the state is at the forefront of the analysis of civil war and societal conflict.