Contents
Introduction i
Part I Structural Crisis of the Capitalist World-System: Impact on Africa
1. How Much Change since Independence? 3
2. Southern Africa in the World-Economy, 1870-2000 13
3. The ANC and South Africa: Past and Present of Liberation Movements 23
4. What Hope Africa? What Hope the World? 41

Part II Rise of Identity Politics: World-System Context for African Dilemmas
5. Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism, Ethnicity 69
6. After Developmentalism and Globalism, What? 87
7. Naming Groups: Politics of Categorizing and Identities 109
8. Political Construction of Islam 125

Part III Perspectives of African Thinkers
9. A Comment on Epistemology: What is Africa? 143
10. The Evolving Role of the Africa Scholar on African Studies 147
11. Basil Davidson's African Odyssey 157
12. Walter Rodney: The Historian as Spokesperson for Historical Forces 165
13. Oliver Cox as World-Systems Analyst 179
14. Reading Fanon in the Twenty-first Century 193
Notes 203
Index 207

In The World-System and Africa, Immanuel Wallerstein examines three important, interconnected themes that link Africa and the capitalist world-system of the last 500 years. While drawing attention to the structural crisis of the modern world-system, Wallerstein uses the first set of essays to explore the impact of this worldwide structural crisis on Africa. Next, he turns to identity politics, a political stance that came to prominence in the last thirty years, and considers the world-system context for the African dilemmas posed by this approach. Not unique to Africa, identity politics has become central to political struggles everywhere in the world-system. Finally, Wallerstein reflects on African thinkers' analyses of current affairs both in the world-system and in Africa. Coming from someone who has been involved in writing about Africa for over seventy years, Wallerstein argues that if Africa is going to play an appropriate and significant role in resolving the structural crisis of the modern world-system, it is crucial that there continue to be a well-informed and intellectually relevant debate about the issues involved, the moral choices to be made, and the political strategies to follow.