Introductory description

This 30 CATS second-year option module introduces students to major debates in the history of the Cold War in Africa, aiming to set these issues within their historical, social and cultural contexts over the period from 1945 to the 1990s.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. From Berlin to Berlin: the division of Africa, the division of the world
2. The rise of African nationalism
3. The Cold War dimensions of decolonisation
4. Searching for alternatives: Bandung, pan-Africanism, and non-alignment
5. Crisis in Congo, 1959-65
6. Reading Week - no lectures or seminars
7. Revolution in Zanzibar, 1964
8. Capitalism, Socialism or African Socialism? Struggles over Economic Growth
9. The Other Cold War: the Sino-Soviet rivalry
10. Educating Africa: students in the Eastern Bloc
11. The end of the dream: coups, dictators, and military rule
12. Superpower rivalry and revolution in the Horn of Africa
13. Proxy war? The Ethiopia-Somalia conflict, 1977-78
14. A luta continua! Liberating southern Africa
15. Defending white minority rule
16. Reading Week - no lectures or seminars
17. Cuba, South Africa, and the struggle for Angola, 1974-89
18. The Cold War and the end of Apartheid
19. New Dawns? Africa after the Cold War
20. Looking back: themes, perspectives, periodisations [Revision session]

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of historical and theoretical interpretations of Africa in the Cold War.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material for the study of Africa in the Cold War, including electronic resources.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

Key textbooks

• Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) [e-book].
• Elizabeth Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013) [e-book].

Modern Africa

• Richard Reid, A History of Modern Africa, 1800 to the Present (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
  Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) [e-book].
• Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (London: The Free Press, 2008).
• Paul Nugent, Africa since Independence: A Comparative History, 2nd edn (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
• Keith Somerville, Africa’s Long Road since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent (London: Hurst, 2015).

The Cold War

• John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War (London: Allen Lane, 2005).
• Martin Walker, The Cold War: A History (New York: H. Holt, 1995).
• Perry Anderson, American Foreign Policy and its Thinkers (London: Verso, 2013) [for a narrative of the Cold War from the 'Left']

The Third World

• Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2007).

Reference works

• Richard H. Immerman and Petra Goedde (eds), The Oxford Handbook on the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) [e-book].
• Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vols I-III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) [e-book].

Journals

• Those after the very latest scholarship may wish to keep an eye on Diplomatic History, Cold War History, Journal of Cold War Studies, International History Review, Journal of African History, and International Journal of African Historical Studies.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.