The Congo Crisis

Kevin Okoth and Jeremy Harding join Tom to discuss two recent books reassessing decolonisation. Textbook histories used to describe African independence as more or less complete by the mid-1960s, but millions of people were fighting white minority rule into the 1970s and 1980s, while Cold War rivalry between the US, the Soviet Union and China played out across the continent, often with catastrophic consequences. As countries continue to vie for Africa’s natural resources, its postcolonial future remains, at best, unresolved.

Find further reading, and listen ad-free, on the LRB website: lrb.me/africascoldwarpod

Sign up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadingspod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.