Africa: Decolonization and Independence, 1945-2023
Multiple Choice Questions
Exam Questions
Discussion Questions
How did the Second World War influence patterns of imperial rule in Africa?
How successful were European attempts at repression in maintaining imperial rule in Africa after 1945?
To what extent was pan-Africanism successful in unifying Africa?
How did southern African states differ from those elsewhere in Africa in their journey towards independence?
What was the importance of the Congo Crisis to African international relations in the 1960s?
How was South Africa able to persist with apartheid for so long?
What role did foreign countries play in African political instability in the 1970s?
Account for the end of apartheid in South Africa by 1990.
How has democracy gradually established itself in Africa since the 1960s?
What are some of the challenges Africa has experienced in modernizing since the 1970s?
Exam Questions
To what extent was the process of decolonization directed by Europe as a planned endeavor?
How did Cold War politics influence Africa, 1945-1989?
How has empire continued to shape Africa since independence in the 1950s-1960s?
Weblinks
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1958-aapc-res1.asp – text of 1958 resolution on imperialism and colonialism at Accra
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1961nkrumah.asp – text of 1961 Nkrumah speech on African freedom and unity
http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-66-60-wp-44-753-3.pdf – text of British Cabinet memorandum on African imperial development 1944
http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-128-30-cm-56-64-64.pdf – text of British Cabinet conclusion on African independence 1956
http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/wind_of_change.htm – text and audio of Macmillan Winds of Change speech in South Africa 1960
http://www.blackpast.org/arusha-declaration-1967 – Arusha Declaration of 1967 on African socialism
http://www.blackpast.org/founding-charter-organization-african-unity – text of 1963 OAU Charter
http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/free_at_last.htm – text of Nelson Mandela speech 1994
http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-129-108-cp-22.pdf – Cabinet memorandum on Kenyan independence 1962
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandelaspeech.html – Nelson Mandela “I am prepared to die” speech before South African court 1964
Bibliography
Adelman, Jeremy & Gyan Prakash, eds., Inventing the Third World: In Search of Freedom for the Postwar Global South (London: Bloomsbury, 2022).
Cullen, Poppy, “‘Playing Cold War Politics’: The Cold War in Anglo-Kenyan Relations in the 1960s”, Cold War History 18:1 (2018) 37-54.
Cullen, Poppy, Steve McCorriston, & Andrew Thompson, “The ‘Big Survey’: Decolonisation, Development and the First Wave of NGO Expansion in Africa after 1945 International History Review 44:4 (2022) 721-750.
Eisenman, Joshua, “Comrades-in-Arms: The Chinese Communist Party’s Relations with African Political Organisations in the Mao Era, 1949-76,” Cold War History 18:4 (2018) 429-445.
Engerman, David C., “Development Politics and the Cold War,” Diplomatic History 41:1 (2017) 1-19.
Gerits, Frank, “The Postcolonial Cultural Transaction: Rethinking the Guinea Crisis within the French Cultural Strategy for Africa, 1958-60”, Cold War History 19:4 (2019) 493-509.
Jodie Yuzhou Sun, “Supplied Cash and Arms but Losing Anyway: Chinese Support of the Lumumbist Insurgencies in the Congo Crisis (1959-65)”, Cold War History 22:4 (2022) 459-478.
Jones, Branwen Gruffydd, “Race, Culture and Liberation: African Anticolonial thought and Practice in the Time of Decolonisation”, International History Review 42:6 (2020) 1238-1256.
Kirby, James, “Between Two Chinas and Two Koreas: African Agency and Non-Alignment in 1970s Botswana”, Cold War History 20:1 (2020) 21-38.
Rich, Jeremy, Protestant Missionaries and Humanitarianism in the DRC: The Politics of Aid in Cold War Africa (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2020).