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This chapter examines the Pan-Africanism of South African scholar-activist, Ruth First, through her intellectual work on Namibia and an analysis of military coups d’état in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, and Ghana, as well as her activism in Mozambique.
This chapter examines the philosophy of Black Consciousness as advocated by Steve Biko in order to increase the consciousness and self-confidence of South Africa’s black masses to liberate themselves.
This chapter analyses Jamaican sociologist and cultural theorist, Stuart Hall, who was one of the pioneers of the “Birmingham School of Cultural Studies”. She assesses how Hall incorporated issues of race, gender, and hegemony into cultural studies, and how culture, race, and ethnicity contributed to creating the politics of Black Diasporic identities.
This chapter examines the Pan-Africanism of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, comparing him to Kwame Nkrumah, before examining his efforts at building institutions of the African Union and engaging the African Diaspora in America, the Caribbean, and Brazil.
This chapter examines the philosophy of Congolese intellectual, V.Y. Mudimbe, through a close textual reading of his preface to his 1971 collection of poems, Déchirures.
This chapter examines the African-American intellectual’s contributions to the movement, especially between 1919 and 1945 when he played a leading role in the five Pan-African Congresses in Paris, London, New York, and Manchester, before moving to Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana to spend the last years of his life.
This chapter examines the Pan-African contributions of Guyanese scholar-activist Walter Rodney, a pioneering member of the Dar es Salaam School of Political Economy, who in his famous 1972 treatise How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, traced the roots of African underdevelopment to European colonialism.
This chapter assesses the environmental and human rights activism of Kenyan Nobel peace laureate, Wangari Maathai, focusing especially on her Green Belt Movement.
This chapter examines the work and activism of Nigerian Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka. Osha views the Nobel laureate as an innovator and Bard of the Yoruba god of creativity, Ogun.
This chapter sets the scene for the book by explaining the evolution of the United Kingdom and highlighting some of the features of its unwritten Constitution. It touches on the civil wars of the seventeenth century, the revolutions in America and France, and the separate stories of how Wales, Ireland and Scotland were annexed by or united with England. The main constitutional features highlighted are the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, the ability of judges to develop the common law, and the role of constitutional conventions. Given the current fragility of the Union, at least in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the chapter wonders if the creation of a written Constitution would help to strengthen the bonds within the Union. It states that the book’s main argument is a written Constitution would not of itself strengthen the Union. What is required is the federalisation of the UK. The chapter ends with a glimpse at some of the subsequent chapters.