AFRICA IN STRUGGLE takes a fresh approach to
African history. It chronicles and analyzes African liberation movements
and counter-movements -- from initial African resistance against
European colonial invasion to the major political upheavals since 1945.
Fogel shows how the aborted revolutions in Algeria and Kenya set back
African history by reimposing repressive rule under a post-colonial
regime. The civil wars in Congo/Zaire and Nigeria, abetted by competing
imperialist interests, set back African history even more by aggravating
ethnic tensions and resentments. On the other hand, victorious workers'
and peasants' revolutions in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau
provided tantalizing vistas of freedom and creative social initiative.

Fogel
brings a sharp theoretical perspective to the complex and often
confusing array of people's revolts, military coups and civil wars that
have shaped much of African history since the second world war. He
exposes how emergent African ruling elites often disguise their class
and ethnic oppression of the people with pseudo-liberating slogans drawn
from socialist and communist theories. He examines pan-African
nationalism in the light of African liberation movements on the ground.
He deals in depth with the theories and practice of Kwame Nkrumah, who
took over the colonial state in Ghana from the departing British rulers
and tried to reorient it to serve the people -- and of Amilcar Cabral,
who patiently prepared a grassroots revolutionary movement in
Guinea-Bissau that, after ten years of armed struggle, broke Portuguese
colonial rule.