History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa FROM THE PUBLISHER
Historical and comparative in its approach, this book places the postcolonial experience of the Lusophone countries within the context of their precolonial and colonial past, comparing and contrasting their experience with that of non-Lusophone African states. The result is a comprehensive, readable, and up-to-date text and reference work on the evolution of postcolonial Portuguese-speaking Africa within the context of the historical experience of African states since independence.
Author Biography: Patrick Chabal is Professor of Lusophone African Studies, University of London, and Head of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at King's College, London. He is co-author (with Jean-Pascal Daloz) of Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Indiana University Press) and author of Amílcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People's Wars.
David Birmingham is Professor of History, University of Kent at Canterbury. His books include Portugal and Africa and Frontline Nationalism in Angola and Mozambique.
Joshua Forrest is Professor of Politics at the University of Vermont and author of Guinea-Bissau: Power, Conflict and Renewal in a West African Nation.
Malyn Newitt is Charles Boxer Professor of Portuguese History, University of London. His books include Portugal in Africa and A History of Mozambique (Indiana University Press).
Gerhard Seibert, a researcher on contemporary Lusophone Africa, is the author of Comrades, Clients, and Cousins: Colonialism, Socialism, and Democratization in São Tomé e Príncipe.
Elsa Silva Andrade, an economist who is currently a researcher and consultant in her homestate of Cape Verde, is the author of Les Îles du Cap Vert: De la Découverte à l'indépendance.
FROM THE CRITICS
Foreign Affairs
The first half of this useful book is Chabal's comparative survey of Africa's five Lusophone countries, and the second half consists of chapters by country experts who focus on Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Sﾽo Tome and Principe, respectively. Chabal identifies the commonalities and differences among the five countries, pinpoints the characteristics that result specifically from their Portuguese heritage, and assesses how each today shares common features with African countries formerly ruled by other colonial powers. The focus is on the years 1975-2000, but all the authors take precolonial and colonial historical conditions into account. Bringing a sophisticated analytical perspective to his introduction, Chabal measures each postcolonial government against the now-fashionable neopatrimonial paradigm (boss-run regimes built on patronage), makes allowances for the varying political skills of nationalist leaders, considers the effects of anticolonial wars in three of the five countries, and looks at the failure of socialist experiments in each. This work fills an important gap.
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