Research Catalog

Title

Overcoming the oppressors : White and Black in Southern Africa / Robert I. Rotberg.

Author

Rotberg, Robert I.

Publication

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 418 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

"This book is about southern Africa's long walk to freedom, about the overturning of colonial rule in the northern territories and the dissolution of backs-to-the-wall white settler suzerainty first in what became Zimbabwe and then in South Africa. Chapters on the individual countries detail the stages along their sometimes complicated and tortuous struggle to attain the political New Zion. We learn how and why the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland failed, how and why apartheid eventually collapsed, and exactly how the various components of this heavily white conquered and later white oppressed domain transitioned via diverse fits and starts into today's assemblage of proud, politically-charged, and still mostly fragmented nation-states. But what did the new republics make of their hard won freedoms? That is the subject of more than half of this book. Having liberated themselves successfully, several soon dismantled democratic safeguards, established effective single-party states, closed their economies, deprived citizens of human rights and civil liberties, and exchanged economic progress for varieties of central planning experiments and stunted forms of protected economic endeavors. Only Botswana, of the new entities, embraced full democracy and good governance. The others, even South Africa, at first tightly regimented their economies and attempted severely to limit the degrees of economic freedom and social progress that citizens could enjoy. Corruption prevailed everywhere except Botswana. Today, as the chapters on contemporary southern Africa reveal, most of the southern half of the African continent is returning, if sometimes struggling, to return to the patterns probity and good governance that many countries abandoned in the decades after independence. Now there is a resurgence of high performance, which this book celebrates"--

Subject

• Decolonization > Africa, Southern
• Apartheid > Africa, Southern
• Apartheid
• Decolonization
• Politics and government
• Africa, Southern > History
• Africa, Southern > Politics and government
• Southern Africa

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

"Partnership" and Multiracialism in the New Africa -- Consummating Zambian Nationhood -- King Cobra and Other Menaces: Zambia Banishes Autocracy -- The Hijacking of Malawi: Banda's Uptight Despotism -- Promises, Promises: Modern Malawi Seeks Prosperity and Plenty Through Pot -- Mandela's Triumph: The Liberating of South Africa -- Surviving State Capture: the Path Forward -- Botswana: Africa's Democratic Exception -- The Promise of Democracy Lost: Zimbabwe -- Namibia: Throwing Off the Long Yoke -- Leaders of Integrity Conquer Africa's Consummate Challenges.

Call Number

ReCAP 23-3380

ISBN

• 9780197674208
• 0197674208

LCCN

2022040706

OCLC

1346352098

Author

Rotberg, Robert I., author.

Title

Overcoming the oppressors : White and Black in Southern Africa / Robert I. Rotberg.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

ReCAP 23-3380