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World War II and Africa: Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Michael Crowder
Michael Crowder
Affiliation:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London
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Extract

Until the late 1970s the impact of the two world wars on Africa was a comparatively neglected area of its colonial history. In 1977 the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London drew attention to this neglect by organizing a symposium on the first of these two wars. A selection of the papers presented at that symposium was published in a special issue of this Journal in 1978. This proved to be a landmark in the study of the history of the First World War in Africa, which has since received much scholarly attention. By contrast, a survey written a few years ago of the Second World War in Africa could make relatively little use of original research. In 1983, however, the Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, Brussels, published a large collection of papers on the Belgian Congo in the Second World War, and in 1984 Richard Rathbone and David Killingray organized a further conference at S.O.A.S. on the impact on Africa of the Second World War. This elicited over thirty papers by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America; they not only provided extensive geographical coverage but also represented a wide variety of interests: political, economic, social and cultural. The conference organizers have since edited a selection of these papers in book form: the topics range from the impact of the war on labour in Sierra Leone to relations between the colonial government and Christian missions in southern Cameroons.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 287 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Crowder, Michael, ‘The Second World War: prelude to decolonisation in Africa’, in Crowder, M. (ed.), Cambridge History of Africa, VIII (c. 1940-c. 1975) (Cambridge, 1984), 8–51.Google Scholar

2 The proceedings, are reviewed below on pp. 422–4.

3 David, Killingray and Richard, Rathbone (eds), Africa and the Second World War (London, 1985).Google Scholar

4 Another conference paper was Smyth, Rosaleen, ‘War propaganda during the Second World War in Northern Rhodesia’, African Affairs, LXXXIII, no. 332 (1984), 345–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See however Spencer, Ian, ‘Settler Dominance, Agricultural Production and the Second World War in Kenya’, J. Afr. Hist. XXI, (1980), 497–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Grundlingh, Louis, ‘The recruitment of South African blacks for participation in the Second World War’, in Killingray, and Rathbone, , Africa and the Second World WarGoogle Scholar; Kiyaga-Mulindwa, David, ‘The Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Second World War’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies, XII, 3 (1984), 33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Tshekedi Khama Papers, Pilikwe, Botswana, Box 42. These letters have all been translated and are being analysed by the writer with the intention of publishing an article on the variety of concerns expressed by soldiers from Gammangwato who served in the Middle East and Italian campaigns.

8 See however Saint-Moulin, L. De, ‘La population du Congo pendant la seconde guerre mondiale’, in Le Congo Belge durant la seconde guerre mondiale, (Brussels, 1983) 15–49.Google Scholar

9 Some work in this field is being carried out. See for instance Okpanga, W. K.. ‘From soldiering to politics and commerce; the returnee Second World War soldier in his home district, 1945–1963’, unpublished paper presented to the Annual Conference of the Historical Association of Kenya, 1984.Google Scholar