3 Review(s)

Offers analyses of a range of African conflicts and demonstrates that peace is 'too important to be left to outsiders'.In this companion volume to The Roots of African Conflicts African scholars analyse a number of conflicts and their resolution - demonstrating the importance of their resolution and their impact on the wider continent '...The studies in these two books seek to advance our understanding of African conflicts by going beyond the conventional and fashionable analyses of Africanist scholarship, often inflected with, if not infected by, Afropessimism, or the simplistic stereotypes conveyed in the western media that is infused with Afrophobia....these conflicts must be understood in comparative perspective, not in isolation. Violent conflict in Africa is indeed part of the human drama, but the tendency to impose universalist models of conflict driven from stylized western experiences or faddish theorising must be resisted... such paradigms lead to poor analysis and bad policy. Conflict is too serious a matter, and its costs too grave, for glib modeling or lazy journalistic speculation uninformed by the histories of, and unmindful of the concrete conditions in, the societies under scrutiny.' - From the introduction to The Roots of African Conflicts by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza 'The search for peace is too important to be left to outsiders, however well-intentioned. It is encouraging to see that a growing number of African scholars areinterested in exploring and engaging this crucial subject'. - From the introduction to The Resolution of African Conflicts by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza North America: Ohio U Press; South Africa: Unisa Press