Book Reviews

International relations and organizations, p.819
Security and the military dimension, p.829
Politics, social affairs and law, p.832
Ethnicity and cultural politics, p.837
Political economy, economics and development, p.841
Energy and environment, p.846
History, p.848
Europe, p.854
Russia and the former Soviet republics, p.866
Middle East and North Africa, p.870
Sub-Saharan Africa, p.874
Asia and Pacific, p.880
North America, p.883
Latin America and Caribbean, p.886     

Book Reviews

International relations and organizations, p.129
Security and the military dimension, p.147
Politics, social affairs and law, p.152
Ethnicity and cultural politics, p.156
Political economy, economics and development, p.158
Energy and environment, p.159
History, p.161
Europe, p.164
Russia and the former Soviet republics, p.172
Middle East and North Africa, p.178
Sub-Saharan Africa, p.181
Asia and Pacific, p.187
North America, p.193
Latin America and Caribbean, p.195     

Book Reviews

International relations and organizations, p.141
Humanitarian intervention and international law, p.151
Security and the military dimension, p.154
Ethnicity and cultural politics, p.159
International and global political economy, economics and development, p.162
Energy and environment, p.166
History, p.170
Europe, p.181
Russia and the former Soviet republics, p.181
Middle East and North Africa, p.187
Sub-Saharan Africa, p.189
Asia and Pacific, p.192
North America, p.196
Latin America and Caribbean, p.196     

Book Reviews

International relations and organizations, p.393
Security and the military dimension, p.404
Politics, social affairs and law, p.406
Ethnicity and cultural politics, p.408
Political economy, economics and development, p.413
Energy and environment, p.417
History, p.418
Europe, p.424
Russia and the former Soviet republics, p.432
Middle East and North Africa, p.436
Sub-Saharan Africa, p.440
Asia and Pacific, p.447
North America, p.451
Latin America and Caribbean, p.454     

Poverty, debt and Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis

As Africa enters its third decade of structural adjustment pressures, the promised advantages of economic restructuring—as hailed by the various lending bodies— have not been forthcoming. The indelible picture emanating from the continent is one of a people relegated to a position of extreme poverty as state managers and the international community either fail to, or seem unable to, pursue policies that will secure the basic needs of its citizens. To compound matters, HIV and AIDS are threatening to erode the continent's already fragile development capacity. Predicated on the continent's limited economic capabilities, this article charts the relationship between poverty, debt relief and the politics of effective response to HIV/AIDS in Africa. The article begins with an assessment of the societal causes and consequences of the epidemic, moving on to contextualize the case for debts cancellation. It concludes by examining the crucial relationship between debt relief and the successful implementation of effective strategies against the pandemic in Africa.     

We have tailored Africa: French colonialism and the ‘artificiality’ of Africa’s borders in the interwar period

After the First World War, the discourse and methods used to determine and define boundaries changed radically. In Europe, the territorial agreements of 1919-20 put forward an ideal of territorial homogeneity, a concept based on the ideal correspondence of state, nation and territory. Meanwhile, in Africa, the French colonizers were also reconsidering their spatial arrangements along the same lines. In this context, the expertise of the social sciences became crucial in defining territory and therefore in political decision-making. At the same time, prominent representatives of the new colonial sciences were responsible for developing and disseminating the idea of the 'artificiality' of African boundaries. This new generation of experts on French colonization considered the borders of Africa to be scars left behind by the old and arbitrary colonial order, which they wished to see replaced by a more humanistic rule. Their discourses, however, offered a vision of Africa based on the continent's exceptional character. In essence, Africa was considered as a continent defined principally along ethnic territorial lines, a logic excluding any political definition of territory. This discourse contributed to redefining the continent as something radically other.     

The Commonwealth and South Africa: From Smuts to Mandela

The creation of modern South Africa as an independent unitary state within the British Empire (c. 1910) gave birth to the Commonwealth idea. Jan Smuts’s views on Commonwealth were formative and they continued to inform the evolution of the organisation until the end of the Second World War. Also significant was the role played by Afrikaner nationalist leader J. B. M. Hertzog, who exerted a critical influence on the 1926 Balfour Declaration and Statute of Westminster. At the point of South Africa’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1961, the Commonwealth divided between new entrants, who cast South Africa as a pariah, and older member states who lamented the exit of a troubled family member. Even after South Africa’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1961, apartheid’s significance as the global exemplar of institutionalised racism and colonial rule helped to bind the Commonwealth as a multi-racial organisation with strongly defined ethical values. South Africa’s reintegration in 1994, with Nelson Mandela to the fore, was welcomed as a triumph for the Commonwealth. Paradoxically, however, this proved a pyrrhic victory and may actually have contributed to the Commonwealth’s state of indirection.     

Studies of African states and the state of African studies

Sandra T. Barnes, Patrons and Power: Creating a Political Community in Metropolitan Lagos, Manchester University Press for the International African Institute, 1986, pp.261. $128.00 (cloth).

Patrick Chabal (ed.), Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the Limits of Power, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp.211. $33.50 (paper).

Preston King, An African Winter, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1986, pp.249. $9.95 (paper).

John Sender and Sheila Smith, The Development of Capitalism in Africa, London, Methuen, 1986, pp.177. $27.95 (paper).

Robert Williams, Political Corruption in Africa, Aldershot, Gower, 1987, pp.145. £18.50 (cloth).     

An Unsettled “Stranded Asset Debt”? Proposing a Supply-Side Counterpart to the “Climate Debt” in a Bid to Guide a Just Transition from Fossil Fuels in South Africa and Beyond

The reign of the fossil fuel empire must come to an end if the average global temperature rise is to be meaningfully capped. Accordingly, a myriad of financial and non-financial stranded assets will be generated in the process. Ample research has explored the implications for a South African fossil transition from a domestic perspective, but a lacuna persists in linking South Africa’s fossil regime to broader international finance flows, and particularly the role that actors from the “global North” should play in phasing out South African fossil fuels. This research finds that such institutions have exacerbated South Africa’s prospective stranded asset exposure, and by doing so, have accrued a Stranded Asset Debt (SAD)—as a supply-side counterpart to the demand-side climate debt, which they have also accumulated—perhaps to the tune of at least several dozens of billions of dollars. Although the Paris Agreement is flawed, it embodies language that can be leveraged to settle the SAD “bill”.     

South Africa’s form of globalisation: a continental posture paradox for insertion and dependence

The fashionable form of globalisation has perpetuated Africa’s incapacity for auto-centeredness. As promises of political and economic reforms did not materialize and as economically powerful states continued to be indifferent, most African states resorted to the strategy of self-interest for international legitimacy and faith in foreign direct investment (FDI) and aid. Departing from its portrayal as a relatively developed, competitive and civil-minded state in Africa, South Africa reinvented modernity in the hope of servicing similar self-interests. I argue that South Africa’s form of globalisation is paradoxical. While positing as a voice for the voiceless and leader of African renaissance, that country simultaneously mediated Africa’s relations for appropriation of neo-liberal principles. Occurring predominantly through political and economic liberalisation, globalisation of Africa is ‘an old story’ of insertion for dependence on foreign capital. I show that South Africa’s neo-liberal agenda in Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), as well, engendered openness to imports. Given the commonalities between GEAR and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), I argue that the latter is South Africa’s instrument of ‘reintegrating’ Africa. I also illustrate that South Africa’s foreign economic policy in Africa and NEPAD are founded on the marginalisation thesis, misreading of the paradoxical operations of neo-orthodoxy globalisation in Africa and the thinking that South Africa is suffering due to its geographical association with Africa. I conclude that that country’s form of globalisation will further empty Africa of its capacity of auto-centeredness and engender openness to imports, which are yet to deliver continental recovery.     

The Origin of African Sheep: Archaeological and Genetic Perspectives

Indigenous African sheep genetic resources have been classified into two main groups, fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep. The fat-tailed sheep are the most widely distributed, being found in a large part of North Africa (from Egypt to Algeria) and in Eastern and Southern Africa (from Eritrea to South Africa). The thin-tailed sheep are present mainly in Morocco, Sudan and in West Africa. African sheep were domesticated outside Africa. They share a common ancestry with European and Asian sheep. Archaeological information supports separate introductions and dispersion histories for the African thin-tailed and fat-tailed sheep. The first sheep entered Africa via the Isthmus of Suez and/or the southern Sinai Peninsula, between 7500 and 7000 BP. They were likely of the thin-tailed type. Fat-tailed sheep entered Africa through its northeastern part and the Horn of Africa. Mitochondrial DNA analysis supports a common maternal ancestral origin for all African sheep, while autosomal and Y chromosome DNA analysis indicates a distinct genetic history for African thin-tailed and sub-Saharan fat-tailed sheep. The main ancestral population of southern African fat-tailed sheep likely originated in East Africa. Further work is needed to assess the possible dispersion of sheep from western Africa to the southern African regions.     

Foreign countries: The development of ethnoarchaeology in sub-Saharan Africa

Ethnoarchaeological research in sub-Saharan Africa began as a distinct study in the late 1960s and early 1970s and developed rather differently in different areas of the continent. This variability is related to a number of research circumstances in these regions: the presence of an important francophone archaeological tradition in West Africa, palaeoanthropological studies that have taken place in East and southern Africa over the last 60 years, and a concentration upon the study of forager groups in different parts of the continent. Ethnoarchaeology in West Africa, in East and Central Africa, and in southern Africa are examined in turn, with particular attention paid to the influence of research lineages in each region and to changes in methodologies and theoretical perspectives through time.     

The Mongol invasions of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article argues that Zionist Christianity emerged in South Africa out of the peasant revolt that occurred in the Boer Republics during and after the South African War. Using the experiences of early Zionist leaders Daniel Nkonyane and Engenas Lekganyane, the article demonstrates the continuity of their theology with the ideology of the ‘Rebellion From Below’ first described by Jeremy Krikler. The early Zionists, like their predecessors, were primarily interested in recreating a world based on communal politics and land ownership – a world without rents, landlords, or white supervision.     

Italy and Africa: how to forget colonialism

Abstract

The debate on colonialism places great emphasis on the composite set of transformations put in motion by colonialism fully to give birth to what became the post-colonial state in independent Africa. Many authors suggest that Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa was too weak to perform this task. The present article intends to review the influence and effects of the Italian colonial experience for state making in the Horn of Africa. This also brings about one of the main anomalies of the Horn of Africa, where colonialism ended without a process of true decolonization, in the sense of a confrontation between colonized and colonizers in the transfer of power from metropolitan rule to African representatives. The present Italian foreign policy in Africa is similarly conditioned by its colonial history: besides its focus on the Horn of Africa, which was the centre of Italy's colonial expansion as well as the only post-Second WorldWar administration (Italian Trust Administration of Somalia – AFIS), the relations between Italy and Africa reflect the many inconsistencies and uncertainties of the colonial experience.     

Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa: Critical Reflections

Shifting cultivation is the agricultural technique employed by the majority of farmers in the tropical regions of Africa. The dominant narrative recited by policy experts, non‐governmental organizations and many scientists is that this practice is a principal cause of deforestation in tropical Africa. This article unpacks the various elements of this narrative and explores whether there is any evidence to substantiate it in West and Central Africa. The results challenge the conventional wisdom that shifting cultivation is leading to accelerating deforestation in tropical Africa.     

Inter-Tidal Causeways and Platforms of the 13th- to 16th-Century City-State of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania

Survey of the coastal and inter-tidal zone at Kilwa in Tanzania resulted in the discovery of a series of artificial causeways and platforms at the entrance to the harbour of Kilwa Kisiwani, an important port trading with East Africa and southern Asia from around the 13th century. These appear to be part of a phase of monumental stone building at Kilwa in the 13th to 16th centuries, and represent a prosperous, confident Kilwa, impressing foreigners arriving by sea. Although necessarily speculative, several possible interpretations of their functions are advanced including navigation, protective breakwaters, access to marine resources, or ceremonial use.
© 2007 The Author     

Hollande and Africa Policy

Studies of French Africa policy have traditionally focused on its neo-colonial basis and the often corrupt nature of the relations it engendered because of the connivances of semi-official and unofficial networks and covert practices that characterised it. These are often referred to in the literature as la Françafrique. In seeking to understand François Hollande's Africa policy this article moves away from a neo-colonial, Françafrique analytical framework and instead seeks to engage with the continuity versus change debate in French Africa policy through the lens of geopolitics. The three central themes of Hollande's Africa policy—security, partnership and trade—are analysed, focusing firstly on the French interventions in Africa, notably in Mali, since 2012, before discussing French engagement with African regional organisations, such as the Economic Community of West African States, and the increasing importance attached to economic and trade links. The article ends with a brief survey of some of the challenges facing French Africa policy.     

Lithostratigraphy of Border Cave, KwaZulu, South Africa: a Middle Stone Age sequence beginning c. 195,000 b.p.

Border Cave is well-known for its Middle Stone Age (MSA) sequence and associated hominids, as well as for the earliest demonstrable Later Stone Age (LSA) (c. 38,000 b.p.) strata in southern Africa. Detailed lithostratigraphic and sedimentological study permits identification of 8 Pleistocene sedimentary cycles, including 6 major cold phases and 2 intervening weathering horizons. The 2 youngest cold phases are associated with the LSA and have 8 ¹⁴C dates 38,600-13,300 b.p. By gauging sedimentation rates in finer and coarser sediments, duration of sedimentary breaks, and allowing for differential compaction, the excellent radiocarbon framework provided by 28 available ¹⁴C dates can be extrapolated to the 6 cold intervals and 2 palaeosols that are older than 50,000 b.p. These clearly span oxygenisotope stages 4, 5 and 6, placing the base of the MSA deposits at c. 195,000 b.p., Homo sapiens sapiens at c. 90,000–115,000 b.p. and the sophisticated, microlithic “Howieson's Poort” industry at 95,000 b.p. These results require radical reassessment of the age and nature of the MSA complex and of the earliest evolution of anatomically-modern people.     

Developing a Heritage Database for the Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT

The Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project based at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester, and Durham uses remote sensing to record archaeological and cultural heritage landscapes across twenty countries from Morocco to Iran and from Syria to Yemen. The project has developed an online heritage database built by adapting the open-source Arches heritage inventory platform developed by the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund. This paper discusses the process of customization of Arches v.3 adopted by EAMENA, particularly with regard to the development of new CIDOC CRM resource data models, reference data, and modifications to the Arches codebase.     

From Savages and Barbarians to Primitives: Africa,Social Typologies,and History in Eighteenth–Century French Philosophy

This article describes the conceptual framework (what I call a “style of reasoning”) within which knowledge about Africa was legitimized in eighteenth–century French philosophy. The article traces a shift or rupture in this conceptual framework which, at the end of the eighteenth century, led to the emergence of new conditions for knowledge legitimation that altered Europe’s perception of Africa. The article examines these two conceptual frameworks within the context of a discussion of the social theory of the time, which categorized Africans first as savages, and then, with the advent of our modern “style of reasoning,” as primitives. The argument used to demonstrate this change in categorizations is historical. (In the terminology of Michel Foucault, the paper is an “archaeological” investigation of knowledge about Africa.) The greater part of the article analyzes in detail the principal social theory of Enlightenment philosophy, the stadial theory of society, with the aim of demonstrating how it determined what could be affirmed about Africa. The shift in the perception of Africans from savages to primitives involved an epistemological change in how societies were grasped. The article provides a greater understanding of the constitution of Africa as a cognitive construct, which is not only of theoretical concern; this construct shaped Europe’s intervention in Africa, and continues to influence what we believe Africa is and should become.