Description
This module provides a history of late colonial and post-colonial Africa viewed through the perspective of debates over development and state formation. If colonial officials once drafted development planning schemes in the halls of Whitehall, today London is headquarters to some of the world’s leading aid agencies and NGOs. Likewise, African states also have promoted their own distinctive, competing visions of modernity and development. This has ranged from the agricultural collectivism of Julius Nyerere’s African socialism to apartheid industrialisation in South Africa, to the “developmental patrimonialism” of Paul Kgame’s Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. We will trace this history from the decades of decades of decolonization, through the Cold War era, to the economic crises of the 1980s and the triumph of “Washington Consensus” in the 1990s, to the recent decade of economic growth, fuelled by a primary commodity boom and Chinese investment in the region.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.