This wide-ranging volume presents the most complete appraisal of modern African history to date. It assembles dozens of new and established scholars to tackle the questions and subjects that define the field, ranging from the economy, the two world wars, nationalism, decolonization, and postcolonial politics to religion, development, sexuality, and the African youth experience. Contributors are drawn from numerous fields in African studies, including art, music, literature, education, and anthropology. The themes they cover illustrate the depth of modern African history and the diversity and originality of lenses available for examining it. Older themes in the field have been treated to an engaging re-assessment, while new and emerging themes are situated as the book’s core strength. The result is a comprehensive, vital picture of where the field of modern African history stands today.

This handbook explores the evolution of African education in historical perspectives as well as the development within its three systems–Indigenous, Islamic, and Western education models—and how African societies have maintained and changed their approaches to education within and across these systems. African education continues to find itself at once preserving its knowledge, while integrating Islamic and Western aspects in order to compete within this global reality. Contributors take up issues and themes of the positioning, resistance, accommodation, and transformations of indigenous education in relationship to the introduction of Islamic and later Western education. Issues and themes raised acknowledge the contemporary development and positioning of indigenous education within African societies and provide understanding of how indigenous education works within individual societies and national frameworks as an essential part of African contemporary society.

This volume covers Kenya’s history, society, culture, economics, politics, and environment from precolonial times through the first years of independence. The book comprises twenty-one chapters divided into two parts. Part I focuses on the long precolonial moment, detailing the nature of precolonial Kenyan societies and their economics, politics, gender dynamics, and social organization. Part II examines Kenyan societies’ encounters with British colonialism, critically outlining the impact and implications of these encounters. The volume concludes with an examination of political consolidation after the country’s attainment of political independence and the subsequent foundations for political authoritarianism.

Using historical and anthropological analysis, this book examines the changing characteristics of nations globally; nation-building in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia; and the history of multi-culturalism in the Global South as an advantage to development in post-colonial conceptions of the nation.

This book explores how three Anglo-Irish writers, J.C. Mangan, J.S. Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, use settings in their short fictions to recreate, depict and confront Ireland’s colonial situation in the nineteenth century. This study provides an innovative approach by targeting a genre (the short story) which has not been explored in its entirety— certainly not within nineteenth century Ireland - much less using a postcolonial approach to the short story. Added to this is the fact that it analyses how these writers used settings as an anticolonial tool. To do so, the book is divided into two major sections, an analysis of Irish settings and non-Irish ones. It works on the premise that all three writers used the idea of displacement to target colonialism and its effects on Irish society. In short, this book addresses a gap in scholarship, as the Irish Gothic short story as a decolonizing tool has not been sufficiently and globally studied.

The Complex Interplay between Power, Politics, and African Agency: The Philosophy of Toyin Falola by Serges Djoyou Kamga examines the impact of colonialism by using Toyin Falola’s philosophy as a framework. It delves into the evolution of African political culture under colonial rule. This book offers a unique perspective on the intricate dynamics of African society, providing a deeper understanding of how power and politics have shaped African culture. Kamga emphasizes the complex interplay between these elements and highlights the significance of African voices in determining their own destiny. Using Falola’s works, this book analyzes and critiques the influence of Europe and establishes the ongoing unequal relationship between ex-colonized African countries and their imperialist colonizers. This book is highly recommended for scholars of African studies, political science, and anyone interested in African history and culture.

A history of Atlantic solidarity between Cuba and Africa, in struggle for African independence from colonial powers The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character.’ As Nelson Mandela states, Cuba was a key participant in the struggle for the independence of African countries during the Cold War and the definitive ousting of colonialism from the continent. Beyond the military interventions that played a decisive role in shaping African political history, there were many-sided engagements between the island and the continent. Cuba and Africa, 1959-1994 is the story of tens of thousands of individuals who crossed the Atlantic as doctors, scientists, soldiers, students and artists. Each chapter presents a case study – from Algeria to Angola, from Equatorial Guinea to South Africa – and shows how much of the encounter between Cuba and Africa took place in non-militaristic fields: humanitarian and medical, scientific and educational, cultural and artistic. The historical experience and the legacies documented in this book speak to the major ideologies that shaped the colonial and postcolonial world, including internationalism, developmentalism and South–South cooperation. Approaching African–Cuban relations from a multiplicity of angles, this collection will appeal to an equally wide range of readers, from scholars in black Atlantic studies to cultural theorists and general readers with an interest in contemporary African history.

In Global Yorùbá, renowned scholar Toyin Falola covers the history, people, traditions, environment, religion, spirituality, cosmology, culture, and philosophy of one of Africa's largest cultural groups, the Yorùbá, all while considering the people's relationship with their immediate and distant neighbors. Falola examines how the Yorùbán people have adapted to their environment and tapped it to (re)invent their civilization, shape their culture and traditions, and inform their socioeconomic relations with their neighbors. These interactions have guided the Yorùbá philosophy that developed over time, expressing their conviction regarding society's evolution and the place that humans occupy within it. This web of knowledge can present a more coherent account than any other text yet produced regarding Yorùbá civilization. This volume demonstrates how global dynamics have been adopted in the creation of a Yorùbá community across different times and spaces.

This original book analyses and reimagines the concept of sustainable development in international law from a non-Western legal perspective. Built upon the intersection of law, politics, and history in the context of Africa, its peoples and their experiences, customary law and other legal cosmologies, this ground-breaking study applies a critical legal analysis to Africa's interaction with conceptualising and operationalising sustainable development. It proposes a turn to non-Western legal normativity as the foundational principle for reimagining sustainable development in international law. It highlights eco-legal philosophies and principles in remaking sustainable development where ecological integrity assumes a central focus in the reimagined conceptualisation and operationalisation of sustainable development. While this pioneering book highlights Africa as its analytical pivot, its arguments and proposals are useful beyond Africa. Connecting global discourses on nature, the environment, rights and development, Godwin Eli Kwadzo Dzah illuminates our current thinking on sustainable development in international law.