Cameroun was conceived in 1947 at the Unicafra Congress in Douala, attended by all the aspiring political actors, from which sprung Racam (Rassemblement Camerounais) that declared itself the Cameroun government in embryo. Shocked by that effrontery, the French colonial state immediately banned Racam. From the ruins of Racam emerged Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) in 1948 that stood opposed to French policies in Cameroun. It opposed France in Cameroon for ten years until the French assassinated its leaderRuben Um Nyobein September 1958. In January 1959 France decolonized and granted Cameroun independence at a time when the people were still reeling from the trauma of Um Nyobes death. Cameroon: Traumas of the Body Politic examines the traumatic events that have shaped the contours and influenced the trajectory of Cameroons political history from the 1940s to the 1990s: the momentous power shifts of 1958 and 1959 in the two Cameroons; rupture of coastal and hinterland cooperation in Southern Cameroons; the political revolution called anlu that changed the course of politics in Southern Cameroons; the disappointment of reunification and the genesis of the Anglophone Problem; Ahidjos quarter-century reign of terror; the succession schism, attempted coup dtat, political liberalization, and the New Deal Society experiment; the quest for multipartyism and Operation Ghost Town, etc. These events are explored anew through critical analysis, synthesis, and re-interpretation with uncommon explanatory power.
European Invention of African Slavery is the first ever study of the origins of the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa. The investigation is executed through a critical textual analysis of the published literature since the eighteenth century. It posits slavery and the trade in human cargo as European cultural transmissions to West Africa, much like European religion, educational traditions, languages, modes of dressing, and mannerisms brought to Africa by European imperialists. Arguing that the commoditization of man by man is what constitutes slavery and the slave trade, the book traces that cultural practice to the ancient Greeks who passed it down to the Romans and Europeans and demonstrates that African systems of social organization were inimical to the reduction of human beings to the status of commodity. Much of what European and Euro-American scholars have written about the Atlantic slave trade is depicted as fiction, concocted to cover up the evil perpetrated on Africans by European dealers in human cargo. A work of monumental depth and reach, it presents nearly all the arguments advanced for and against the African origin of the Atlantic slave trade. It is an exceptional text for teaching and referencing.
European colonization of Africans in the late 1800s replaced European enslavement of Africans from the 1450s to the 1870s. Colonization and enslavement were two sides of the same coin. Both were involuntary. In both the European was the master and beneficiary and the African the enslaved and exploited. Barely half a century after European decolonization of Africa, new voluntary wave upon waves of African migration have reached global dimensions. The agency of change seems to have shifted from Europeans to Africans. “Bushfallers” is the Cameroonian designation for this new African agents of change—the restless-young unemployed and unemployable at home, who migrate abroad in search of greener pastures. Cast within the context of defining moments in the political history of contemporary Cameroon, The New African Diaspora... draws from the colonial experiences that predated the emergence of decolonized Cameroon and offers glimpses into the impact of neocolonialism on the existing situation and analyzes how bushfallers are struggling to navigate through the confining tempest by venturing outward in preparation for executing the role that history seems to have pre-determined and designed for them. What will become of Cameroon’s bushfallers when after having exhausted their energies “bushfalling” abroad decide to turn their attention to politics at home? It is toward this end that Konde rises to the apex of originality by prescribing “DISDEFORG” in the Postlude—a “Three-Ds’ and One-O” formula for achieving success consisting of four principles: Discipline, Discovery, Definition, and Organization.
European colonization of Africans in the late 1800s replaced European enslavement of Africans from the 1450s to the 1870s. Colonization and enslavement were two sides of the same coin. Both were involuntary. In both the European was the master and beneficiary and the African the enslaved and exploited. Barely half a century after European decolonization of Africa, new voluntary wave upon waves of African migration have reached global dimensions. The agency of change seems to have shifted from Europeans to Africans. “Bushfallers” is the Cameroonian designation for this new African agents of change—the restless-young unemployed and unemployable at home, who migrate abroad in search of greener pastures. Cast within the context of defining moments in the political history of contemporary Cameroon, The New African Diaspora... draws from the colonial experiences that predated the emergence of decolonized Cameroon and offers glimpses into the impact of neocolonialism on the existing situation and analyzes how bushfallers are struggling to navigate through the confining tempest by venturing outward in preparation for executing the role that history seems to have pre-determined and designed for them. What will become of Cameroon’s bushfallers when after having exhausted their energies “bushfalling” abroad decide to turn their attention to politics at home? It is toward this end that Konde rises to the apex of originality by prescribing “DISDEFORG” in the Postlude—a “Three-Ds’ and One-O” formula for achieving success consisting of four principles: Discipline, Discovery, Definition, and Organization.
Cameroun was conceived in 1947 at the Unicafra Congress in Douala, attended by all the aspiring political actors, from which sprung Racam (Rassemblement Camerounais) that declared itself the Cameroun government in embryo. Shocked by that effrontery, the French colonial state immediately banned Racam. From the ruins of Racam emerged Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) in 1948 that stood opposed to French policies in Cameroun. It opposed France in Cameroon for ten years until the French assassinated its leaderRuben Um Nyobein September 1958. In January 1959 France decolonized and granted Cameroun independence at a time when the people were still reeling from the trauma of Um Nyobes death. Cameroon: Traumas of the Body Politic examines the traumatic events that have shaped the contours and influenced the trajectory of Cameroons political history from the 1940s to the 1990s: the momentous power shifts of 1958 and 1959 in the two Cameroons; rupture of coastal and hinterland cooperation in Southern Cameroons; the political revolution called anlu that changed the course of politics in Southern Cameroons; the disappointment of reunification and the genesis of the Anglophone Problem; Ahidjos quarter-century reign of terror; the succession schism, attempted coup dtat, political liberalization, and the New Deal Society experiment; the quest for multipartyism and Operation Ghost Town, etc. These events are explored anew through critical analysis, synthesis, and re-interpretation with uncommon explanatory power.
Environmental Infrastructure in African History offers a new approach for analyzing and narrating environmental change. Environmental change conventionally is understood as occurring in a linear fashion, moving from a state of more nature to a state of less nature and more culture. In this model, non-Western and pre-modern societies live off natural resources, whereas more modern societies rely on artifact, or nature that is transformed and domesticated through science and technology into culture. In contrast, Emmanuel Kreike argues that both non-Western and pre-modern societies inhabit a dynamic middle ground between nature and culture. He asserts that humans - in collaboration with plants, animals, and other animate and inanimate forces - create environmental infrastructure that constantly is remade and re-imagined in the face of ongoing processes of change.
From the Pharaohs to Fanon, Dictionary of African Biography provides a comprehensive overview of the lives of the men and women who shaped Africa's history. Unprecedented in scale, DAB covers the whole continent from Tunisia to South Africa, from Sierra Leone to Somalia. It also encompasses the full scope of history from Queen Hatsheput of Egypt (1490-1468 BC) and Hannibal, the military commander and strategist of Carthage (243-183 BC), to Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (1909-1972), Miriam Makeba and Nelson Mandela of South Africa (1918 -).
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