Product Description:     Two decades after the publication of his prize-winning book, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, Crawford Young and a distinguished panel of contributors assess the changing impact of cultural pluralism on political processes around the world, specifically in the former Soviet Union, China, United States, India, Ethiopia, and Guatemala...read more

Product Description: The management of cultural diversity is a major challenge in many states. This book follows up the theoretical analysis of Ethnic Diversity and Public Policy with detailed case studies from leading international experts on Malaysia, Tanzania, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Northern Ireland, Spain, and the United States to discover what lessons can be learned for policy-makers in other divided societies...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: Political transition to democracy in Nigeria, under the auspices of a series of authoritarian military governments, has been prolonged and unfinished. Vast sums of money and an increasing number of Nigerian lives have been sacrificed, and the more intangible costs - to the relations among and between the country's complex mosaic of ethnicities, religions and regions, and to its international relations - have been incalculable...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

In this comprehensive and original study, a distinguished specialist and scholar of African affairs argues that the current crisis in African development can be traced directly to European colonial rule, which left the continent with a "singularly difficult legacy" that is unique in modern history. Crawford Young proposes a new conception of the state, weighing the different characteristics of earlier European empires (including those of Holland, Portugal, England, and Venice) and distilling their common qualities. He then presents a concise and wide-ranging history of colonization in Africa, from the era of construction through consolidation and decolonization. Young argues that several qualities combined to make the European colonial experience in Africa distinctive. The high number of nations competing for power around the continent and the necessity to achieve effective occupation swiftly, yet make the colonies self-financing, drove colonial powers toward policies of "ruthless extractive action." The persistent, virulent racism that established a distance between rulers and subjects was especially central to African colonial history. Young concludes by turning his sights to other regions of the once-colonized world, comparing the fates of former African colonies to their counterparts elsewhere. In tracing both the overarching traits and variations in African colonial states, he makes a strong case that colonialism has played a significant part in shaping the fate of this troubled continent. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Zaire, apparently strong and stable under Presdident Mobutu in the early 1970s, was bankrupt and discredited by the end of that decade, beset by hyperinflation and mass corruption, the populace forced into abject poverty. Why and how, in a new african state strategically located in Central Africa and rich in mineral resources, did this happen? How did the Zairian state become a “parasitic predator” upon its own people...read more

Looks at examples of African Marxism, socialism, and capitalism, and discusses the economic and political conditions in modern Africa