Synopses & Reviews
In 1965 the white minority government of Rhodesia (after 1980 Zimbabwe) issued a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain, rather than negotiate a transition to majority rule. In doing so, Rhodesia became the exception, if not anathema, to the policies and practices of the end of empire. In
Unpopular Sovereignty, Luise White shows that the exception that was Rhodesian independence did not
, in fact, make the state that different from new nations elsewhere in Africa: indeed, this history of Rhodesian political practices reveals some of the commonalities of mid-twentieth-century thinking about place and race and how much government should link the two. and#160;
White locates Rhodesiaand#8217;s independence in the era of decolonization in Africa, a time of great intellectual ferment in ideas about race, citizenship, and freedom. She shows that racists and reactionaries were just as concerned with questions of sovereignty and legitimacy as African nationalists were and took special care to design voter qualifications that could preserve their version of legal statecraft. Examining how the Rhodesian state managed its own governance and electoral politics, she casts an oblique and revealing light by which to rethink the narratives of decolonization.
Review
andldquo;Unpopular Sovereigntyand#160;is an insightful and important book, one that sheds a great deal of light on the complexities of sovereignty, self-determination, and citizenship, on the possibilities and limitations of electoral politics, and on the relationship of territorial politics to global norms.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This is a thorough, comprehensive, and well-researched book that will be the essential starting point for the reconsideration of Zimbabweandrsquo;s recent history and historiography. A sharply acute and very readable study that resets the foundations for the understanding of Rhodesiaandrsquo;s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, it sets the events surrounding and following UDI in the context of African decolonisation and in their international context. With fascinating accounts of the constitutional machinations and the regime of economic sanctions and its failures, it is unrivalled as a rich resource for the period based on a very wide range of sources.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Whiteandrsquo;s Unpopular Sovereignty is a groundbreaking contribution to studies of decolonization. She places the seemingly anomalous history of Rhodesian independence within the decolonization of the rest of Africa. This is combined with a reanimation of the history of the andlsquo;high politicsandrsquo; of late colonialism by incisive accounts of the effects of various franchise commissions and experiments at constitution writing. The result is one of the most decisive challenges to linear versions of decolonization: of Rhodesia-into-Zimbabwe, to be sure, but also, more broadly, of colonies into nation-states. Written with characteristic brilliance, verve, and wit, Unpopular Sovereignty will become indispensable reading for scholars of colonialism and of the postcolonial world.andrdquo;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Set in the late-colonial context of decolonization in Africa, this masterful book demonstrates that sovereignty does not flow in a linear fashion and according to preordained coordinates; and, that its predicates and foundationsandmdash;political autonomy and self-government, on the one hand, and political identity and subjectivity, on the otherandmdash;abide time and space in unpredictable ways. Relating the arguments to contemporary Zimbabwe, White demonstrates once and for all that the nature of sovereign power or associated political processes and outcomes are better understood through the manners in which shifting terrains of global, regional, and local alliances shaped the interests and the terms of the quest for power for protagonistsandmdash;white minorities and so-called native populations alike. This is a truly impressive intervention in the historiography (and theory) of decolonization in Zimbabwe that holds significant insights for accounts of postcolonial sovereignty everywhere. Simply wonderful and a joy to read.andrdquo;
Synopsis
In this closely integrated collection of essays on colonialism in world history, Frederick Cooper raises crucial questions about concepts relevant to a wide range of issues in the social sciences and humanities, including identity, globalization, and modernity. Rather than portray the past two centuries as the inevitable movement from empire to nation-state, Cooper places nationalism within a much wider range of imperial and diasporic imaginations, of rulers and ruled alike, well into the twentieth century. He addresses both the insights and the blind spots of colonial studies in an effort to get beyond the tendency in the field to focus on a generic colonialism located sometime between 1492 and the 1960s and somewhere in the "West." Broad-ranging, cogently argued, and with a historical focus that moves from Africa to South Asia to Europe, these essays, most published here for the first time, propose a fuller engagement in the give-and-take of history, not least in the ways in which concepts usually attributed to Western universalismand#151;including citizenship and equalityand#151;were defined and reconfigured by political mobilizations in colonial contexts.
Synopsis
"Probably the most important historian of Africa currently writing in the English language. His intellectual reach and ambition have even taken influence far beyond African studies as such, and he has become one of the major voices contributing to debates over empire, colonialism and their aftermaths. This book is a call to reinvigorate the critical way in which history can be written. Cooper takes on many of the standard beliefs passing as postcolonial theory and breathes fresh air onto them."and#151;Michael Watts, Director of the Institute of International Studies, Berkeley
"This is a very much needed book: on Africa, on intellectual artisanship and on engagement in emancipatory projects. Drawing on his enormous erudition in colonial history, Cooper brings together an intellectual and a moral-political argument against a series of linked developments that privilege 'taking a stance' and in favor of studying processes of struggle through engaged scholarship."and#151;Jane I. Guyer, author of Marginal Gains
About the Author
Frederick Cooper, Professor of History at New York University, is author of Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (2002) and coeditor, with Ann Laura Stoler, of Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (California, 1997), among other books.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Place Names, Party Names, and Currency
1 and#147;The last good white man leftand#8221;: Rhodesia, Rhonasia, and the Decolonization of British Africa
and#160;2 and#147;Racial representation of the worst typeand#8221;: The 1957 Franchise Commission, Citizenship, and the Problem of Polygyny
and#160;3 and#147;European opinion and African capacitiesand#8221;: The Life and Times of the 1961 Constitution
and#160;4 and#147;A rebellion by a population the size of Portsmouthand#8221;: The Status of Rhodesiaand#8217;s Independence, 1965and#150;1969
and#160;5 and#147;A James Bond would be truly at homeand#8221;: Sanctions and Sanctions Busters
and#160;6 and#147;Politics as we know the termand#8221;: Tribes, Chiefs, and the 1969 Constitution
and#160;7 and#147;Other peoplesand#8217; sonsand#8221;: Conscription, Citizenship, and Families, 1970and#150;1980
and#160;8 and#147;Why come now and ask us for our opinion?and#8221;: The 1972 Pearce Commission and the African National Council
and#160;9 and#147;Your vote means peaceand#8221;: The Making and the Unmaking of the Internal Settlement, 1975and#150;1979
and#160;10 and#147;Lancaster House was redundantand#8221;: Constitutions, Citizens, and the Frontline Presidents
and#160;11 and#147;Adequate and acceptableand#8221;: The 1980 Election and the Idea of Decolonization
and#160;12 and#147;People such as ourselvesand#8221;: Rhodesia, Rhonasia, and the History of Zimbabwe
Bibliography
Index