TITLE: The African Colonial State and the Encounter with Decolonization
SPEAKER: Crawford Young
EVENT DATE: 07/25/2007
FORMAT: Video + Captions
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript (link will open in a new window)
DESCRIPTION:
Crawford Young, a distinguished scholar on Africa and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, discussed "The African Colonial State and the Encounter with Decolonization" in a program sponsored by the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center and the National History Center, and was presented in conjunction with the National History Center's Second International Research Seminar on Decolonization, held in Washington D.C., from July 9 through Aug. 4.
Young's talk covered the final phase of the African colonial state, its confrontation with African nationalism and the terms of power transfer. He believes that in its final phase after World War II the African colonial state was strengthened by rapidly increasing revenues, yet fatally weakened by the swiftly deepening challenge of African nationalism. For the first time, major public investments were made in social infrastructure, and the scale and scope of state action expanded dramatically. Yet the growing success of nationalist movements in mobilizing anti-colonial protest compelled the colonizer to accede to a power transfer timetable far more compressed than anticipated.
Speaker Biography: Crawford Young is the Rupert Emerson & H. Edwin Young Professor (emeritus) of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, where he taught from 1963 to 2001. He has written and edited a number of award-winning books and articles on Africa, including "The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective" (1994); "The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State" (co-authored with Thomas Turner, 1985); and "Ideology and Development in Africa" (1982). He has served as visiting professor and taught in Congo-Kinshasa, Uganda and Senegal. A former president of the African Studies Association, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the Scholars' Council at the Library of Congress.
