J. S. La Fontaine – författare

City Politics is a detailed study of the city of Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville), capital of the Congo, in the years immediately following independence. The book is a study of political leadership in an urban African movement undergoing extremely rapid change. The social and political processes of the city are examined in order to assess how certain citizens achieved political influence and how they maintained themselves in these positions of power. The history of the city, the population structure and the social economic structure of the city are all described in detail to provide the necessary background for the analysis of the political processes identified by the author. This work will be of interest to a wide readership. The description of a period in the process of decolonization of the only Belgian colony in Africa will prove of value to historians and political scientists.

Routledge is proud to be re-issuing this landmark series in association with the International African Institute. The series, originally published between 1950 and 1977, collected ethnographic information on the peoples of Africa, using all available sources: archives, memoirs and reports as well as anthropological research which, in 1945, had only just begun. Concise, critical and (for its time) accurate, the Ethnographic Survey contains sections as follows: Physical Environment Linguistic Data Demography History & Traditions of Origin Nomenclature Grouping Cultural Features: Religion, Witchcraft, Birth, Initiation, Burial Social & Political Organization: Kinship, Marriage, Inheritance, Slavery, Land Tenure, Warfare & Justice Economy & Trade Domestic ArchitectureEach of the 50 volumes will be available to buy individually, and these are organized into regional sub-groups: East Central Africa, North-Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, West Central Africa, Western Africa, and Central Africa Belgian Congo. The volumes are supplemented with maps, available to view on routledge.com or available as a pdf from the publishers.