Africa: The Political Pattern

This volume contains informative and stimulating articles on the new states and modern problems of Africa. The hopes and difficulties of independence, the tensions of racial contacts, are sketched with vigour and conciseness for West, South and East Africa. In the opening essay the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Relations for Nigeria, Jaja Wachuku, presents his country's special emphasis on its three important relationships: with the Commonwealth, with the United Nations and, as its largest single country, with the continent of Africa. Thomas Hodgkin considers the state systems which are developing in West Africa in response to the processes of change, and the interrelations among them. Arthur Keppel-Jones examines the interplay between racialism and republicanism in the politics of South Africa, outlining the politics and fortunes of the Nationalist and the United parties, Bryan Keith-Lucas provides a historical account of Sierra Leone before independence which clarifies the special problems this newly sovereign state must solve. Cranford Pratt analyses situations in East Africa -- Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda -- which complicate the early replacement of British rule by independent governments offering prospects of being both stable and just. These essays were first prepared as lectures delivered in a highly successful series at Carleton University.