The study o f African history as an academic discipline is a rather new field and one that still has its detractors both w ithin and outside academics. This collection o f articles highlights for students and scholars the modern era in African history. It brings together published research on the colonial era in Africa, an era relatively brief but one that saw dramatic change in African societies.

This book examines Ghana’s Pan-African foreign policy during Nkrumah’s rule, investigating how Ghanaians sought to influence the ideologies of African liberation movements through the Bureau of African Affairs, the African Affairs Centre and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute. In a world of competing ideologies, when African nationalism was taking shape through trial and error, Nkrumah offered Nkrumaism as a truly African answer to colonialism, neo-colonialism and the rapacity of the Cold War powers. Although virtually no liberation movement followed the precepts of Nkrumaism to the letter, many adapted the principles and organizational methods learnt in Ghana to their own struggles. Drawing upon a significant set of primary sources and on oral testimonies from Ghanaian civil servants, politicians and diplomats as well as African freedom fighters, this book offers new angles for understanding the history of the Cold War, national liberation and nation-building in Africa.

Historical account of the rise of African nationalism in reaction to racial policies and economic and racial discrimination (incl. In labour policy) in South Africa R - describes the formation, activities and political leadership of the African national congress political party from 1912 to 1952, and covers social movements, political problems, race relations, etc. Bibliography pp. 422 to 455.

Using the socio-political discourse of Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering Pan-Africanist and Ghana’s independence leader, Nartey investigates the notion of political myth-making in a context underexplored in the literature. He examines Nkrumah’s construction of a myth described in the book as the Unite or Perish myth (i.e., the idea of a ‘United States of Africa’ being a prerequisite for the survival of Africa in the post-independence period), exploring the rhetorical resources he deployed, categorizing and analyzing key tropes and metaphors, and setting out the myth’s basic components. This book focuses on three areas: an investigation of political myth-making as a social and discursive practice in order to identify particular semiotic practices and linguistic patterns deployed in the construction of mythic discourse; the unpacking of the discursive manifestation, representation, features, and functions of political mythic themes; and finally to propose and implement an integrated discourse analytical framework to account for the complexities of mythic discourse and political narratives in general. It analyzes how Nkrumah deployed his discourse to concurrently construct heroes and villains, protagonists and antagonists, as part of an ideological mechanism aimed at galvanizing support for and instigating action on the part of the masses towards his lifelong African dream. Nartey’s book steps out from the conventional domain of critical discourse studies to focus on myth as a form of populist performance. It will be of interest to postgraduate students and academics in (critical) discourse studies, rhetorical discourse analysis, African and Diaspora studies, and African history, as well as non-academics such as journalists, political commentators, and people who consider themselves to be Nkrumaists and Pan-Africanists.

Branches of Asanteism explores the epistemologies and research methodologies that have sprung from Mwalimu Molefi Kete Asante’s treatises on Afrocentricity. The book identifies and analyzes thirteen such epistemologies and methodologies while defining and explicating the various “branches” of Asante’s idea of Afrocentricity.

Autobiographical Assessment of the Black Experience study inquiry of God and Man.

With the help of discourse analysis and ideology critique, Ellen Wesemüller establishes a theoretical framework to analyze African nationalism in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Following the constructivist school of thought, the study adopts the assumption that nations are "imagined communities" which are built on "invented traditions". It shows that historically and analytically, there are two distinct concepts of nationalism: "constitutional" and "ethnic" nationalism. These concepts can be retraced in South Africa where they form the central antagonism of black political thought. The study of post-apartheid African nationalism is placed in its historical perspective by focusing on the major milestones of African National Congress' discourse before and during apartheid. It demonstrates that throughout its history, the ANC was characterized by the rivalry between concepts of "constitutional" and "ethnic" nationalism. While the former concept found its counterpart in Charterism, the latter was adopted by African nationalism. Though the ANC in its majority embraced Charterism, it continually played with the appeal of an exclusive, racial nationalism. The theoretical and historical contextualization of the book allows for the investigation of the various dimensions of current ANC discourse on African nationalism. Wesemüller analyses different concepts of nationalism employed by the ANC and compares these models to those discussed in academic literature. She concludes that in post-apartheid South Africa, the historical dichotomy of Africanist and Charterist nationalism persists within the ANC. While early concepts of nationalism like Mandela's "rainbow nation" and Mbeki's "I am an African" paid tribute to Charterism, the discourses on the "African Renaissance" and Mbeki's "two-nation" address at least leave openings for Africanist interpretations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that nationalism is not only a product of discourse but also one of material conditions. The study provides evidence that it is not only the ANC that hijacks African nationalism in order to mobilize their electorate and push through unpopular policy choices. Also, there are compelling material reasons for some South Africans to adopt a nationalist agenda. This is demonstrated by the new "black" bourgeoisie that mediates the gap between rich and poor as well as black and white. African nationalism in this regard serves to legitimate domination and existing relations of inequality. It affirms an African elite while neither uplifting the majority of African poor nor threatening the material privileges of white South Africans. Lastly, Ellen Wesemüller gives an outlook on the political implications of a resurrected nationalism. The effects can be analyzed according to the two promises of nationalism: superiority over "outsiders" and equality between "insiders". Superiority in post-apartheid South Africa is established over other African countries, immigrants and inner South African groups that are considered "foreign".

The monograph advances a sociological, political and politico-economic theoretic argument for African unity. The conceptual system is based on the philosophy of polyrhythmicity. The methods and techniques of the argument are drawn from the logic of polyrhythmics where conflicts in cultural differences as revealed in Africa's diversity are viewed as strength and beauty in unity within the Africentric mindset. These cultural conflicts and differences must be concretized in unity for Africa's emancipation, development and social welfare improvements. The main premise of the book is that Africa must unite without which Africa's rapid socio-economic development will be kept in arrested mode and held hostage by imperial system of predation through international strategic resource games. The validity of the main premise is demonstrated from a global conceptual view of African nationalism. The concept of global African nationalism is developed from the Pan-African analytical foundations after reviewing other views with the title "e;African nationalism"e;. The logic of the analysis is systematically constructed from the building blocks and conceptual relationships among state-specific nationalism, ethnic-specific affinity and tribal-specific affinity; and the roles they may play in facilitating or inhibiting Africa's complete emancipation through politico-economic unity. The relationships are linked to events of contemporary dynamics of the modus operandi of global predation, resource conflicts and politico-economic power distribution over the global resource and demographic space. In general the monograph presents a multidisciplinary theory of regional integration with a special emphasis on Africa's global position. The monograph addresses itself to researchers, scholars, diplomats, political practitioners, students and those in the general public, who are engaged in economics, political science, sociology, theory of regional integration, African studies, Africana studies, Black studies and activists searching for better global tomorrow.