LAUSR

Whether African independence came swiftly or slowly, and whether it was won, attained, or granted, continues to provoke stimulating debate among African political scientists, historians, and adherents of other scholarly disciplines and interdisciplinary spaces. There are, of course, no simple answers to such questions, not the least because African independence movements flourished—and continue to flourish—in vastly differing communities, nations, and historical moments, each informed by important historical specificities and exigencies. Lusophone African countries, some the site of the longest and most far-reaching European presence on the continent, waged decades-long violent wars well into the 1990s. The preponderance of francophone nations attained nominal independence almost overnight and en bloc, but continue to labor under various manifestations of neocolonialism and the specter of Françafrique. And other nations and regions, from South Sudan and Eritrea to Puntland, Biafra, and Western Sahara continue to struggle with the challenges of fully realizing independence, autonomy, and global recognition. Suffice it to say, any attempt to teach the broad history of the African independence struggle is no modest endeavor. Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker’s anthology of primary sources pertinent to the political imagination of and ideologies informing African independence is thus a very welcome resource for teachers and researchers everywhere. The collection is vast and quite comprehensive, comprising four parts, each with a short introductory essay. Beginning with early visions of independence in the mid-nineteenth century, part one offers examples of nascent pan-Africanism, local resistance, and trans-Atlantic bonds-information, with selections from a predictable cohort, including Samuel Crowther, Edward Blyden, W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and others. Part two, subtitled “paths to independence,” showcases both the multitude of ways different actors articulated anticolonial action and the ways in which African states achieved independence, with selections from the 1945 Manchester Conference, speeches by Jomo Kenyatta, Sekou Touré, Patrice Lumumba, and many others. Part three continues the conversation into the