Originally published in 1978, this volume provides a selection of Michael Crowder's wrtings on the impact of colonial rule in West Africa and African reaction to it from the conquest to independence. Key themes include the impact of European culture on African culture; the resistance of Africans to European conquest; African reaction to colonial rule; the differences between French and British administrative, social and economic politices and the consequences of these differences for those subjected to them; the extent to which Africans accepted the new socio-political strucrrues imposed on them and the point at which they began to take control over them; and finally the importance or otherwise of the colonial period in African history as a whole.

Originally published in 1959, this book charts the journey made by the author and a Creole journalist from Sierra Leone across West Africa at a time when a political, economic and cultural revolution was taking place. It was not so much the exotic tribal Africa as the new Africa of the politicians, the aspects characteristic of the period of transition that fascinated Crowder. He was struck by the differences produced by years of British and French rule. He talked with governors and the governed wherever he went. Part travelogue, part academic study, this is a fascinating portrait of West Africa on the cusp of monumental change in the second half of the 20th Century.

Originally published in 1968, this book became the standard work on the colonial period in the vast and varied areas of the coast and hinterland of West Africa. It is a comprehensive survey of the domination of West Africa by the British and the French, which challenges the accepted view of the colonialists that their rule was generally beneficial. Penetrating descriptions of the colonial economic system are given, and the quality of colonial administration is analysed, as well as the impact of two World Wars.

Originally published in 1971, this book is a study by 9 historians of West Africa, three of whom are themselves African, of the military response to the colonial occupation of West Africa. Apart from the fact that the extent and effectiveness of African resistance to 19th Century European invasion of Africa has been underestimated by historians, those studies of the African campaigns that have been made have been primarily concerned with the military strategy and problems of European invaders. Very little attention has been paid to the way African military commanders reorientated their military strategies and deployed their armies against the better-armed European invaders.

Originally published as a revised edition in 1967, this book covers an aspect of Senegalese history of great importance not only for the student of French Colonial policy but also for those interested in the development of nationalism in French-speaking Africa. Senegal was the only French colony in Africa where any sustained attempt was made to implement the much-discussed policy of assimilation. In a concise and authoritative study, the author assesses the effects of this unique experiment in colonial rule and examines the reasons for its failure and repudiation by both France and Senegal, and the marks it left on the latter.

First published in 1978. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The eighth and final volume of The Cambridge History of Africa covers the period 1940–1975. It begins with a discussion of the role of the Second World War in the political decolonisation of Africa. Its terminal date of 1975 coincides with the retreat of Portugal, the last European colonial power in Africa, from its possessions and their accession to independence. The fifteen chapters which make up this volume examine on both a continental and regional scale the extent to which formal transfer of political power by the European colonial rulers also involved economic, social and cultural decolonisation. A major theme of the volume is the way the African successors to the colonial rulers dealt with their inheritance and how far they benefited particular economic groups and disadvantaged others. Special attention is paid in the chapters on Southern Africa and East and Central Africa to the problems posed by the continued role of white minority regimes in the Republic of South Africa, Rhodesia under UDI and Namibia. In the independent countries the limitations imposed on their options - political and economic - by poverty, population growth and the continued commercial domination of the former colonial powers and their allies, are analysed in the context of current theories of dependence and underdevelopment. The contributors to this volume represent different disciplinary traditioins - history, political science, economics and sociology - and do not share a single theoretical perspective on the recent history of the continent, a subject that is still the occasion for passionate debate, and for which the primary sources are still largely unavailable. Rather they reflect the variety of views and vigour of scholarship that have been brought to bear on a continent for which scholarly concern has itself been a comparatively recent development.