The United States and West Africa

Interactions and Relations

Alusine Jalloh, Toyin Falola

• Publisher: University of Rochester Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9781580462778
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781580467513
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: Literature

Over the last several decades, historians have conducted extensive research into contact between the United States and West Africa during the era of the transatlantic trade. Yet we still understand relatively little about more recent relations between the two areas. This multidisciplinary volume presents the most comprehensive analysis of the U.S.-West African relationship to date, filling a significant gap in the literature by examining the social, cultural, political, and economic bonds that have, in recent years, drawn these two world regions into increasingly closer contact. Beginning with examinations of factors that linked the nations during European colonial rule of Africa, and spanning to discussions of U.S. foreign policy with regard to West Africa from the Cold War through the end of the twentieth century and beyond, these essays constitute the first volume devoted to interrogating the complex relationship -- both historic and contemporary -- between the United States and West Africa. Contributors: Abdul Karim Bangura, Karen B. Bell, Peter A. Dumbuya, Kwame Essien, Andrew I. E. Ewoh, Toyin Falola, Osman Gbla, John Wess Grant, Stephen A. Harmon, Harold R. Harris, Olawale Ismail, Alusine Jalloh, Fred L. Johnson III, Stephen Kandeh, Ibrahim Kargbo, Bayo Lawal, Ayodeji Olukoju, Adebayo Oyebade, Christopher Ruane, Anita Spring, Ibrahim Sundiata, Hakeem Ibikunle Tijani, Ken Vincent, and Amanda Warnock. Alusine Jalloh is Associate Professor of History and founding director of The Africa Program at the University of Texas at Arlington. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• Part One: Trade and Politics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
• Part Two: Forging Cultural Connections: America in Africa
• Part Three: Forging Cultural Connections: Africa in America
• Part Four: U.S. Political and Economic Interests in West Africa
• Part Five: Looking toward the Future: U.S.–West African Linkages in the Twenty-first Century
• LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX
• Backcover