Nationalism and African Intellectuals

This book is about how African intellectuals, influenced primarily by nationalism, have addressed the inter-related issues of power, identity politics, self-assertion and autonomy for themselves and their continent, from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Their major goal was to create a 'better Africa' by connecting nationalism to knowledge. The results have been mixed, from the glorious euphoria of the success of anti-colonial movements to the depressing circumstances of the African condition as we enter a new millennium. As the intellectual elite is a creation of the Western formal school system, the ideas it generated are also connected to the larger world of scholarship. This world is, in turn, shaped by European contacts with Africa from the fifteenth century onward, the politics of the Cold War, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. In essence, Africa and its elite cannot be fully understood without also considering the West and changing global politics. Neither can the academic and media contributions by non-Africans be ignored, as these also affect the ways that Africans think about themselves and their continent. Nationalism and African Intellectuals examines intellectuals' ambivalent relationships with the colonial apparatus and subsequent nation-state formations; the contradictions manifested within pan-Africanism and nationalism; and the relation of academic institutions and intellectual production to the state during the nationalism period and beyond. Toyin Falola is the Nalle Centennial Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents:
Modern Intellectuals: Values and Visions "The National Sentiment": Ideologues of Cultural Nationalism "Seek Ye the Political Kingdom": Nationalism and Nation Building From Repatriation to Reparations: Old and New Pan-Africanism "Things Fall Apart": The Rise and Decline of the African Academy "African Glories": Nationalist Historiography Intellectuals and Africa in a Changing World Order

About the Author :
TOYIN FALOLA is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.

Review :
[This book] clearly rests on extensive and carefully evaluated evidence and intellectual experience. One of Africa's most prolific historians offers here reflections on modern African intellectual life to inform contemporary debates. Nationalism and African Intellectuals. . . is an extremely well-written and judicious exploration of the common issues that still inevitably bind African intellectuals together, even in the midst of the adversities that have overwhelmed many centres of learning within Africa. This volume will find a ready place alongside the more nuanced studies concerned with Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora. An impressive book from an impressive historian.