Post-colonial South Asia and Africa invite comparison: along with their political boundaries, they inherited from colonial regimes administrative languages, a cluster of sovereign state institutions and modern economic nuclei. When they became independent, South Asian and African states were - for all their diversity - thrust into a common position in the international system, and embarked on a common history as 'emergent', 'non-aligned', 'developing nations'. This is the first book to offer a single-volume comparative history of postcolonial South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in the first generation since independence.South Asia and Africa After Independence draws together the political and economic history of these two regions, assessing the colonial impact, establishing breaks and continuities, and highlighting their diversity and interplay. Waites sets out a framework for analysing the first generation of post-colonial history, offering an interpretation of 'post-colonialism' as a historical phenomenon, and provocatively challenging us to re-think this term in relation to South Asian and African history. This book is an important reference for the study of global, world, African and South Asian history.
BERNARD WAITESVisiting Senior Research Fellow at theOpenUniversity, UK.His publications include A Class Society at War and Europe and the Third World (PalgraveMacmillan, 1999).
Introduction: Post-colonialism in Historical PerspectivePost-colonial Trajectories in South AsiaDemocracy, Economic Planning and Economic Stagnation in India: 1947 c.1975Caste in post-colonial IndiaPolitics and Economics in Independent African StatesNigeria and Congo-Zaire, 1960 – c.1975: Decolonisation, Civil War and State RecoveryNigeria and Congo-Zaire from the 1970s to Late 1990s: Regional Giants, Giant Failures?Colonialism, Post-colonialism and Ethnic Violence: the Examples of Rwanda and BurundiAngola and MozambiqueSummary and ConclusionsBibliographyIndex.
'A new, carefully researched and broadly cross-disciplinary synthesis of post-colonial experiences in South Asia and Africa.' - Richard Ford, Research Professor, International Development, Community, and Environment, Clark University, USA
