Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa

Ronald Aminzade is Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of Lund, and the University of Amsterdam. His research on the political consequences of capitalist development in nineteenth-century France has been published in numerous articles and in two books, Ballots and Barricades and Class, Politics, and Early Industrial Capitalism. He is the co-editor of The Social Worlds of Higher Education (1999), on the sociology of education, and Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2001), on social movements and contentious politics. His current research focuses on nationalism and the politics of economic development in East Africa.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. The Struggle for Independence and Birth of a Nation: 2. Colonialism, racism, and modernity; 3. Foreigners and nation building; 4. Race and the nation-building project; Part II. The Socialist Experiment: 5. African socialism: the challenges of nation building; 6. Socialism, self-reliance, and foreigners; 7. Nationalism, state socialism, and the politics of race; Part III. Neoliberalism, Global Capitalism, and the Nation-State: 8. Neoliberalism and the transition from state socialism to capitalism; 9. Neoliberalism, foreigners, and globalization; 10. Neoliberalism, race, and the global economy; 11. Conclusion: race, nation, and citizenship in historical and comparative perspective.

'This neatly structured and sophisticated book undoubtedly contributes to a better understanding of one of Africa's exemplary nationalisms - the Tanzanian nationalist struggle and nation-building project. In a well-documented narrative the author addresses a general audience, which is one of the strengths of the volume, while at the same time contributing to the growing scholarly literature. Aminzade highlights and connects the parts that constitute the nation-building context, thus providing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the complexity of national identity formation.' István Tarrósy, African Affairs