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181 Epilogue c h a r l e s p. h e n ry M a r k i n g th e centenary of any historical figure can be a delicate exercise. Does one simply laud the accomplishments of the individual that made him or her a part of history?This is a safe but often boring choice. Does one attempt to show how relevant a figure’s life is to the contemporary scene? This is a more stimulating option but runs the risk of making assumptions that have no way of being supported. For a historical individual who is also an intellectual,there is a further complication.Ideas have a life of their own that often extends beyond that of their originator. Is, for example, our conception of race the same today as fifty or a hundred years ago? I am happy to conclude that the contributions to this volume—celebrating the centenary of the birth of Ralph Johnson Bunche—manage to avoid all the above obstacles. It is a volume that Bunche himself would be pleased with.That is, it gets to the heart of his work with a minimum of adulation. In fact, there is significant criticism of Bunche. Even better, it raises crucial contemporary issues pointing out how lessons from the past—Bunche’s past—might lead to improved solutions. In short, the legacy of Bunche, especially for Africa, is on full display here and contemporary policymakers would do well to take note. Four themes emerge from the preceding articles: opportunity, theoretical sophistication, practical application, and constructive criticism .Several contributions point out the rare opportunity afforded to Bunche as an African American to do fieldwork in the colonial world in the 1930s.There was little interest on the part of most American scholars and virtually no chance for academics of color to do field research in Africa until the 1950s.Although he wrote about Africa, W. E. B. DuBois never conducted fieldwork there, and the early black AfricanistWilliam Leo Hansberry was discouraged from applying for a place on British archeological expeditions in Egypt. 182 charles p. henry The fact that Bunche was able to gain both the financial support and the permission to conduct field research in colonialAfrica tells us something about the man and the context in which he operated. Of course, Bunche’s stellar student career at Harvard at least opened the door of major foundations.Yet it is a tribute to his emerging diplomatic skills that Bunche was able to conduct his research with the relative independence that eluded figures such as James Aggrey.That Bunche never had the opportunity to turn his voluminous field notes into a major publication is the price we pay for his rapid ascent in the world of politics. Not only would Bunche’s observations and analysis of colonialism have been an invaluable perspective but they would have added to the theoretical sophistication of the literature on Africa. Bunche was a political scientist with training in anthropological field research, not a historian. He was always interested in philosophy and theory. One contributor compares his work to that of Raymond Buell but argues that the latter was more positive about the mandate system and British rule than Bunche.Another contributor suggests that Bunche’s work may be compared to Karl Deutsch’s social mobilization thesis and Immanuel Wallerstein’s theoretical work on capitalist world systems .This is high praise indeed and even if only partly true hints at the potential Bunche held as a scholar. In the battle between Bunche’s dual identities as a bourgeoispragmatist or a leftist,one would have to say the pragmatist dominated his later years.The decision was probably an easy one with the unique opportunity presented to him to help shape the post–World War II world through the instrumentality of the United Nations. Of course, the UN itself was an expression of idealism in search of practical grounding. In the person of Ralph Bunche it found the nearly perfect public servant. As that rare American who was not tainted with European colonialism but expert in its characteristics, Bunche found a laboratory for the practical application of his scholarly learning and his democratic ideals.With Dag Hammarskjöld, Bunche believed the UN could play a crucial role in the transition of Africa from colonialism to independence.Whether this opportunity amounts to a vision of world government, as one contributor writes, is open to debate. What is not open to debate, as several...

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