Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present
Frederick Cooper
The present is not a blank slate; it is the past still at work.
Cooper, a leading historian of Africa, traces how decolonization actually unfolded, rejecting both nostalgic and purely tragic accounts to show colonial states as "gatekeeper" regimes that shaped the nations that followed. Written for students, it replaced slogans with a careful account of labour, politics, and the limits of the postcolonial state. It became a widely assigned synthesis of modern African history.
Its legacy. Its gatekeeper-state model reframed how scholars explain postcolonial governance.
- Author
- Frederick Cooper
- First published
- 2002
- Genre
- History
- Theme
- Colonialism and Its Critics
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