Post-independence Africa: Perspectives on Political and Socio Economic Mutations

The colonial period and post-independence era are two exciting historical pegs with shared and diametrically opposed narratives on the people and continent of Africa. They are two periods with leverages of continuities and discontinuities. While the colonial period for the most part left the African people as passive recipients of European socioeconomic and political values, colonialism at the same time created strands of resistance that manifested variously as nationalism. The outcome of the nationalist effervescence was the 'termination' of the colonial enterprise and the appropriation of political independence. The independence of most African states was accompanied by a craving to indigenize the political institutions and to orient development along African paradigms. This scholarly compendium of 15 chapters integrates different narratives on the state, stakes, and prospects of the African continent in responding to dynamic socio-economic and political exigencies.