A History of the World From the 20th to the 21st Century

modelled on St Peter’s in Rome with space for 18,000 people. It was (reluctantly) consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. It i ...

defeat and bowing to the democratic process. The military gave way to civilian rule. In Gabon, where President Omar Bongo ruled ...

northern Rhodesia or South Africa, traditional African structures were subservient to white needs and exploitation. In West Afri ...

new constitution that would allow more African representation. It was established in 1951. Nkrumah, who was far more radical tha ...

released. The fourth coup in May 1979 brought into the limelight a charismatic leader who promised to rid Ghana of corruption an ...

he had founded in 1944, the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC). The Yoruba, in the western region, supported the p ...

the wounds. Ojukwu fled into exile. A few Biafran officers were imprisoned for a short time, but many Ibos were reinstated in fe ...

try on an unprecedented scale, by as much as four billion dollars according to some estimates. The lucky ones shared in the fort ...

honour of the American President. But only the ‘civilised’ had the vote, and that meant the descendants of the American freed sl ...

brutalised and join in an orgy of mutilation, hacking off limbs of men, women and even chil- dren. There is nowhere to flee to s ...

European colonial rule, based on overwhelming military power, established common patterns of control. Resistance to authority wa ...

Tanganyika. From there rich deposits of copper, cobalt and other valuable minerals were exported. To the north-west, the provinc ...

despite UN protection, was transported to Katanga by Mobutu’s soldiers. There, in January 1961, he was killed ‘while trying to e ...

involved in rescuing Zaire from misrule. In 1995 the conflict entered a new, confusing phase in this region of the Congo. Previo ...

conflicts were papered over. Britain was only too anxious to accept at face value that the African politicians had indeed formed ...

stitution, however, could remove the bar. In any case a democratic constitution is more in tune with the times and appeals to hi ...

Africa’s violent history. Although Tutsis and Hutus had lived together in Rwanda as neighbours and many Tutsis had married Hutus ...

coup by Africans overthrew the Sultan’s govern- ment and put in its place a revolutionary council which, in April 1964, announce ...

Africans: Africa was now their homeland. On the other hand, only one-third of Kenya was fertile, and the highland plateau, the b ...

played a guiding role in agriculture too, and for- mulated national plans. Kenya at the time of inde- pendence was the most comm ...