The Imperial Experience in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1870

Through case studies illustrating the differential impact of European domination on African societies, Mr. Wilson surveys sub-Saharan Africa from 1870 to the 1970s. He describes the continent and its regions, analyzes the colonial regimes of Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal, and discusses African resistance and involvement. His study demonstrates how the Europeans inadvertently delineated what would constitute, within two generations, the outlines of independent African states. After the "scramble," the self-confident imperialists had hoped to control African development with low-cost administrative and educational schemes, under the illusion that they had abundant time. But, as this account shows, their timetables were subverted by the spread of western education through missionary activity and laissez-faire economic development, often on African initiatives. The end of empire was signaled by the growth of African nationalism combined with European self-destruction in two world wars and the emergence of the United States and Soviet Russia as superpowers. Led by Britain, the European states instituted abrupt decolonization policies which culminated in the Belgian withdrawal from the Congo and the collapse of Portuguese resistance to African liberation movements. In southern Africa, where Africans lost their land to European settlers, white domination has been more durable, the author points out, and Africans still struggle for self-determination.