Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
This detailed and authoritative volume changes our conceptions of "imperial" and "African" history. Frederick Cooper gathers a vast range of archival sources in French and English to achieve a truly comparative study of colonial policy towards the recruitment, control, institutionalization of African labor forces from the mid-1930s, when the labor question was first posed, to the late 1950s, when decolonization was well under way.
Professor Cooper explores colonial conceptions of the African worker, and shows how African trade union and political leaders used the new language of social change to claim equal wages, equal benefits, and share of power. This helped to persuade European officials that their post-war project of building a "modern" Africa within the colonial system was both unaffordable and politically impossible.
France and Great Britain left the continent, insisting the they had made it possible for Africans to organize wage labor and urban life in the image of industrial societies while abdicating to African elites responsibility for the consequences of the colonial intervention.
They left behind the question of how much the new language for discussing social policy corresponded to the lived experience of African workers and their families and how much room for maneuver Africans in government or in social movements had to recognize work, family, and community in their own ways.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
History, Colonies, Decolonization, Colonial influence, Labor laws and legislation, Labor, Labor unions, Labor movement, Africa, foreign relations, Africa, history, France, colonies, africa, Labor movement, africa, Labor laws and legislation, africa, Labor unions, africa, Great britain, colonies, africaPlaces
Africa, Great Britain, FranceTimes
20th centuryEdition | Availability |
---|---|
1
Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa
2011, Cambridge University Press
in English
0511822022 9780511822025
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2
Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa
2010, Cambridge University Press
in English
0511584091 9780511584091
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Decolonization and African society: the labor question in French and British Africa
1996, Cambridge University Press
in English
0521562511 9780521562515
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 627-655) and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?August 2, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
August 17, 2023 | Edited by | Merge works |
August 23, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
August 4, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |