@article{858557,
      recid = {858557},
      author = {James, Lawrence,},
      title = {Empires in the sun : the struggle for the mastery of  Africa /},
      pages = {xvii, 391 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates :},
      abstract = {In this compelling history of the men and ideas that  radically changed the course of world history, Lawrence  James investigates and analyzes how, within a hundred  years, Europeans persuaded and coerced Africa into becoming  a subordinate part of the modern world. His narrative is  laced with the experiences of participants and onlookers  and introduces the men and women who, for better or worse,  stamped their wills on Africa. The continent was a magnet  for the high-minded, the philanthropic, the unscrupulous  and the insane. Visionary pro-consuls rubbed shoulders with  missionaries, explorers, soldiers, adventurers, engineers,  big-game hunters, entrepreneurs and physicians. Between  1830 and 1945, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal,  Italy and the United States exported their languages, laws,  culture, religions, scientific and technical knowledge and  economic systems to Africa. The colonial powers imposed  administrations designed to bring stability and peace to a  continent that seemed to lack both. The justification for  occupation was emancipation from slavery - and the common  assumption that late nineteenth-century Europe was the  summit of civilization. By 1945 a transformed continent was  preparing to take charge of its own affairs, a process of  decolonization that took a mere twenty or so years. There  remained areas where European influence was limited  (Liberia, Abyssinia) - through inertia and a desire for a  quiet time, Africa's new masters left much undisturbed.  This magnificent history also pauses to ask: what did not  happen and why?},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/858557},
}