Decolonisation and Regional Geopolitics

Lazlo Passemiers is a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Studies Group, University of the Free State, South Africa. He specialises in transnational histories of decolonisation in twentieth-century Southern Africa.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations1960 Map of Southern Africa1960 Map of CongoSection I: Setting the SceneCentring AfricaThe First Republic, 1960-1965Section II: South African Involvement1960-1963 1963-19641964-1965Section III: South African Motives and PerceptionsMotivesPerceptionsSection IV: ConclusionsAn African BattlegroundIndex

"This trailblazing study is overdue. The historiography of the Congo crisis has long yearned for an exploration of its impact on the sub-region – this book comes over two decades after the appearance of a monograph exploring Britain’s role in the tumult. Passemiers has laid out a compelling template that demonstrates to other scholars how to consider the impact of decolonisation within a continental framework. It should spur new histories of decolonisation that consider with similar vigour the interplay and consequences of imperial retreat across Africa." - Brooks Marmon, University of Edinburgh and University of Pretoria, H-Diplo "the book makes a welcome and refreshing contribution to knowledge on the Congo Crisis, and it is bound to sit comfortably among the most influential works that have been written on the local, regional and international geopolitical dimensions of the crisis in Congo during the First Republic." - Godfrey Hove, National University of Lesotho, Southern Journal for Contemporary History"fascinating in itself and an important addition to the literature on the decolonisation of southern Africa." - Chris Saunders, University of Cape Town, South African Historical Journal