Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (review)

In light of new interpretations and approaches to history and rapidly changing events on the African continent, writing an introductory textbook for the recent past poses real challenges. A history of the continent is comparative history by definition. Historian Frederick Cooper combined his strong suit in comparative history and his interest in historicizing and interrogating bodies of knowledge to produce this welcome and welcoming study of the past of Africa’s present as the inaugural volume of the New Approaches to African History Series. While Cooper’s nearly 700 page opus, Decolonization and African Society intimidated all but the most dedicated undergraduates, Africa since 1940, weighing in at just over 200 pages, is as accessible as it is packed with solid, current information in useful formats¹. The pictures, graphs, maps, bibliography and index support and enhance the narrative. Several of the maps make interesting visual statement, but they should be bigger; students get younger every year and maps get smaller.

Cooper is a rare historian in that his research and analysis moves easily and competently from the Americas to Africa, from East to West Africa and among a range of national and colonial archives and scholarly literatures in different languages and regions. His work to date has challenged scholars to compare decolonization processes, reconsider culture, consider Subaltern Studies, probe the “politics of knowledge,” ways of knowing and the utility of concepts like “globalization.”² He writes in clear no-nonsense prose with a light ironic touch. His style is very well suited to the overview of tensions and complexities scripted into this inaugural volume of the “New Approaches to African History” series.

In some interesting ways Cooper’s book addresses and updates the key questions raised in Michael Crowder’s classic essay, “Whose dream was it anyway?” Twenty-five Years of African Independence.”³ Crowder’s essay is now a generation old, but the assumptions it challenged remain intractable in scholarship, policy and the popular imagination. Cooper opens with the high and low points of 1994’s headlines: the South African elections and Great Lakes district massacres. He closes with the limits of lessons from those events, but through the body of the work he consistently targets the questions that are on students’ minds. He re-frames those questions in historical context and interrogates them with some of the most sophisticated current scholarship to provoke insight. To what extent has colonialism left its aspirations and footprint on the African continent? Is the colonial footprint dominant, or is it rather the footprint that westerners notice and rulers promote; the one made visible through colonial archives, colonial language newspapers and spokespeople. Or is the colonial footprint in some ways a mirage? To what extent did the “visible” colonial footprint mask the pre-dating and enduring boundaries, communications networks, demographics and power relations that underpinned daily life on the continent. Cooper’s overview complements Steven Feierman’s point that important actors and components of daily life on the continent were in some ways rendered invisible because they were so ill-fitted to academic claims to knowledge, history and expertise.⁴ Cooper addresses agency, process and transformation as an engagement and contest. Africans are not cast as a hapless audience to a tragic plot, but as responsible and irresponsible actors among a large and diverse cast.

One could debate Cooper’s locations in time and space and his choices for categories. Why 1940 and not 1945, 1947 or 1960? All are appropriate markers for decolonization in some parts of the continent.⁵ Cooper provides a context for “the past of the present” situation, and to that end the sets of changes that begin to crescendo in 1940 make sense. He also sensibly pursues a thematic analysis drawing depth from the areas he knows best, but given his range this is definitely not an idiosyncratic or limited treatment. His attention to diversity of experience requires a flexible chronology and his examples draw out common and contrasting continental patterns.

This book is designed as an introductory text...