Living the End of Empire


Book Description

Building on the foundational work of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, the essays contained in Living the End of Empire offer a more nuanced and complex picture of the late-colonial period in Zambia than has hitherto been presented in nationalist histories.




Conversations with memorable personalities


Book Description

After reviewing just part of this book's contents, Rex Mudenda - a risk-management professional and Lusaka based avid reader of political science literature - states This book is loaded. There is usually no such a cocktail of prominent personalities covered in one book. I kept on salivating on the featured names under the "Conversations" section. The book has captured a good slice of Zambia's political story. Mulenga Kapwepwe, a prolific Zambian author, states: A page turning thriller of historical, social and political value. Each prominent personality comes alive through Amos Malupenga's compelling narrative, allowing us rare glimpses into their personal experiences and connections to pivotal events that have impacted and coloured our fascinating national story. The above is an apt description of this book's contents. They are as intriguing as they are gripping. Because of the "cocktail" of the personalities featured, one can safely say "these are several books in one." On the basis of these conversations with most of the political figures, the author has taken the liberty to draw a parallel between democracy and theocracy. In so doing, the author concludes that from the beginning of human history, even the best human governments (democracies) have failed to solve mankind's serious problems because of bad leadership owing to the inherent imperfection as a result of sin. The bad leadership "is increasingly proving to be one of the root causes of all evil in human societies" across the entire inhabited earth. Consequently, the author asserts that theocracy is the panacea, the universal cure, the perfect solution and sovereign remedy to mankind's problems - be they big or small.




African Activists in a Decolonising World


Book Description

As wars of liberation in Africa and Asia shook the post-war world, a cohort of activists from East and Central Africa, specifically the region encompassing present-day Malawi, Zambia, Uganda and mainland Tanzania, asked what role they could play in the global anticolonial landscape. Through the perspective of these activists, Ismay Milford presents a social and intellectual history of decolonisation and anticolonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on multi-archival research, she brings together their trajectories for the first time, reconstructing the anticolonial culture that underpinned their journeys to Delhi, Cairo, London, Accra and beyond. Forming committees and publishing pamphlets, these activists worked with pan-African and Afro-Asian solidarity projects, Cold War student internationals, spiritual internationalists and diverse pressure groups. Milford argues that a focus on their everyday labour and knowledge production highlights certain limits of transnational and international activism, opening up a critical - albeit less heroic - perspective on the global history of anticolonial work and thought.




Politics in Zambia


Book Description

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.







Kalonga Gawa Undi X


Book Description

This study reconstructs the life history of Paramount Chief Kalonga Gawa Undi X of the Chewa speaking people of Zambia's Eastern Province. Born in 1931, he played a key role in the nationalist movement in Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) in the late 1950s and early 1960s and participated in the constitutional talks in England at the height of the struggle for political freedom. Throughout his life, he successfully fought to preserve the power and authority of traditional leaders, thereby confounding attempts by both colonial governments and African urban elites to undermine chiefly prerogative and power. With this study, the author asks us to rethink the standard historical accounts of the role of traditional leaders in African independence.




Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

Since the end of the 1980s the most important political development in Sub-Saharan Africa has been the movement towards democracy. This is something that has affected nearly all the countries in the region in varying degrees. This book provides the reader with a set of case studies covering a diverse range of African states in order to identify the major causes of recent change, the progress made so far and what the prospects for the future might be. While changes in the global political situation has been important, the greatest impetus towards democracy has been the result on internal factors. For all the states covered the specific domestic, social, economic, and political conditions are seen as vitally important.










Liberal Nationalism in Central Africa


Book Description

This book transforms our contemporary understanding of the recent political history of Central Africa. It charts the complex life and thought of Harry Nkumbula (ca. 1917-1983), the first openly nationalist African politician in Northern Rhodesia and, later, the leader of parliamentary opposition during Zambia's multi-party First Republic.