Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror

Foreign Intervention in Africa chronicles the foreign political and military interventions in Africa during the periods of decolonization (1956-1975) and the Cold War (1945-1991), as well as during the periods of state collapse (1991-2001) and the "global war on terror" (2001-2010). In the first two periods, the most significant intervention was extra-continental. The United States, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the former colonial powers entangled themselves in countless African conflicts. During the period of state collapse, the most consequential interventions were intra-continental. African governments, sometimes assisted by powers outside the continent, supported warlords, dictators, and dissident movements in neighboring countries and fought for control of their neighbors' resources. The global war on terror, like the Cold War, increased the foreign military presence on the African continent and generated external support for repressive governments. In each of these cases, external interests altered the dynamics of Africa's internal struggles, escalating local conflicts into larger conflagrations, with devastating effects on African peoples.

Author: Elizabeth Schmidt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/23/2013
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780521709033

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2014

About the Author
Schmidt, Elizabeth: - Elizabeth Schmidt is Professor of History at Loyola University Maryland. She is the author of Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946-1958 (2007), which received the African Politics Conference Group's 2008 Best Book Award, and Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958 (2005), which received Alpha Sigma Nu's book award for history in 2008. Her 1992 book, Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939, was awarded a special mention in the Alpha Sigma Nu book competition for history, was a finalist for the African Studies Association's Herskovits Award and was named by Choice an 'Outstanding Academic Book' for 1994.