Independent Africa

Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong is Ellen Gurney Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He also serves as the Oppenheimer Faculty Director of the Center for African Studies. He is the author of Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana c. 1800 to Recent Times, and Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-social History of the Anlo of Southeast Ghana ca. 1850 to Recent Times.

"In this revealing book, a distinguished historian trains his eyes on the first two decades of Africa's independence. Erudite and judicious to a fault, Emanuel Akyeampong ranges from religion and the arts to economics and politics to weave a fascinating synthesis that does not skimp on the telling detail and the complexities of a variegated continent. Economists and other social scientists interested in the political economy of development will learn much from this book."—Dani Rodrik, Harvard University"In this fascinating book, distinguished historian Emmanuel Akyeampong offers an insightful, nuanced, and comparative analysis of nation building, economic development, and shifting international relations in select post-independent African countries in the 1960s and 1970s. It brilliantly examines the political and economic thought of the new leaders in the context of the dominant development paradigms of the time, as well as the complex development trajectories of their new nations. An impressive achievement that is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand the political and cultural economies of early postcolonial Africa."—Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, USA

• AcknowledgmentsAcronyms and AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Africa in the Twentieth Century2. Religion, Culture, and the Arts in the Making of the Africa Nation State3. Economic Imaginaries: African Leaders and Development Economics4. Pan-African Socialism: The African Developmental State, Regional Integration, and Worldmaking5. Nkrumah, Cocoa, and the United States: The Vision of an Industrialized African Nation-StateConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex