Africa

Getting Somalia Wrong?
Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State
Mary Harper
9 February 2012

Somalia is a failed state, representing a threat to itself, its neighbours and the wider world. In recent years, it has become notorious for the piracy off its coast and the rise of Islamic extremism, opening it up as a new 'southern front' in the war on terror. At least that is how it is...

Region-building in Southern Africa
Progress, Problems and Prospects
Edited by Chris Saunders, Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa and Dawn Nagar
9 February 2012

How successful have Southern African states been in dealing with the major issues that have faced the region in recent years? What could be done to produce more cohesive and effective region-building in Southern Africa?

In this original and wide-ranging volume, which draws on an...

Africa's Odious Debts
How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent
Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce
13 October 2011

In Africa's Odious Debts, Boyce and Ndikumana reveal the shocking fact that, contrary to the popular perception of Africa being a drain on the financial resources of the West, the continent is actually a net creditor to the rest of the world. The extent of capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa...

Charles Taylor and Liberia
Ambition and Atrocity in Africa's Lone Star State
Colin M. Waugh
13 October 2011

Campaigner, insurgent, fugitive, rebel commander, commodity kingpin, elected president, exile and finally prisoner, Charles Taylor sought to lead his country to change but instead ignited a conflict which destroyed Liberia in over a decade of violence, greed and personal ambition. Taylor's...

Congo Masquerade
The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure
Theodore Trefon
8 September 2011

Congo Masquerade is about mismanagement, hypocrisy and powerlessness in what has proved to be one of Africa's most troublesome and volatile states. In this scathing study of catastrophic aid inefficiency, Trefon argues that whilst others have examined war and plunder in the Great Lakes region,...

Elections and the Media in Post-Conflict Africa
Votes and Voices for Peace?
Marie-Soleil Frère
8 September 2011

Over the past ten years, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Rwanda all organized pluralist elections in a post conflict context, having experienced an armed conflict which either interrupted or prevented democratization processes....

Catastrophe: What Went Wrong in Zimbabwe?
Richard Bourne
11 August 2011

No one in 1980 could have guessed that Zimbabwe would become a failed state on such a monumental and tragic scale. In this incisive and revealing book, Richard Bourne shows how a country which had every prospect of success when it achieved a delayed independence in 1980 became a brutal police...

Biofuels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in Africa
Edited by Prosper B. Matondi, Kjell Havnevik and Atakilte Beyene
9 June 2011

The issue of biofuels has already been much debated, but the focus to date has largely been on Latin America and deforestation - this highly original work breaks fresh ground in looking at the African perspective. Most African governments see biofuels as having the potential to increase...

Politics in Africa
A New Introduction
Nana K. Poku and Anna Mdee
9 June 2011

Democracy, prosperity and self-rule, this was the vision of African independence. Across the continent, however, the 'optimism' that characterized the immediate post-independence period has largely faded. Meanwhile, ordinary Africans lurch between undemocratic, unaccountable and unresponsive...

African Cities
Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice
Garth Myers
14 April 2011

As African societies come to live more and more in cities, they do so in ways that challenge prevailing theories and models of urban development in geography, sociology, anthropology, and planning. In this groundbreaking book, Myers uses African urban concepts and experiences to speak back to...

Child Migration in Africa
Iman Hashim and Dorte Thorsen
10 February 2011

Child Migration in Africa explores the mobility of children without their parents within West Africa. Drawing on the experiences of children from rural Burkina Faso and Ghana, the book provides rich material on the circumstances of children's voluntary migration and their experiences of it....

Oil and Insurgency in the Niger Delta
Managing the Complex Politics of Petro-violence
Edited by Cyril Obi and Siri Aas Rustad
10 February 2011

The recent escalation in the violent conflict in the Niger Delta has brought the region to the forefront of international energy and security concerns. This book analyses the causes, dynamics and politics underpinning oil-related violence in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It focuses on the...

Chocolate Nations
Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa
Orla Ryan
20 January 2011

FROM BEAN TO BAR - WHERE DOES YOUR CHOCOLATE COME FROM?

Chocolate - the very word conjures up a hint of the forbidden and a taste of the decadent. Yet the story behind the chocolate bar is rarely one of luxury...

From the thousands of children who work on plantations to...

South Africa Pushed to the Limit
The Political Economy of Change
Hein Marais
13 January 2011

Since 1994, the democratic government in South Africa has worked hard at improving the lives of the black majority, yet close to half the population lives in poverty, jobs are scarce, and the country is more unequal than ever. For millions, the colour of people’s skin still decides their...

The Lord's Resistance Army
Myth and Reality
Edited by Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot
8 July 2010

The Lord's Resistance Army is Africa’s most persistent and notorious 'terrorist' group. Led by the mysterious Joseph Kony, it has committed a series of horrific human rights abuses, including massacres and mutilations. Since the mid 1980s, it has abducted tens of thousands of people,...

Africa's Informal Workers
Collective Agency, Alliances and Transnational Organizing in Urban Africa
Edited by Ilda Lindell
8 April 2010

Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond.

Gathering cases from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond...

Neoliberal Africa
The Impact of Global Social Engineering
Graham Harrison
25 March 2010

Neoliberalism has shaped African development for nearly thirty years. As such, it is not an economic 'shock' or a 'structural adjustment', but rather a historic shift in Africa's development politics and policy. This book explores the ways in which African countries have experienced the...

The Rise of China and India in Africa
Challenges, Opportunities and Critical Interventions
Edited by Fantu Cheru and Cyril Obi
11 March 2010

In recent years, China and India have become the most important economic partners of Africa and their footprints are growing by leaps and bounds, transforming Africa's international relations in a dramatic way. Although the overall impact of China and India's engagement in Africa has been...

Africa's Development Impasse
Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation
Stefan Andreasson
11 February 2010

Orthodox strategies for socio-economic development have failed spectacularly in Southern Africa. Neither the developmental state nor neoliberal reform seems able to provide a solution to Africa's problems.

In Africa's Development Impasse, Stefan Andreasson analyses this failure and...

Climate Change in Africa
Camilla Toulmin
8 October 2009

Climate change is a major challenge for us all, but for African countries it represents a particular threat. This book outlines current thinking and evidence and the impact such change will have on Africa's development prospects.

Global warming above the level of two degrees...