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African Guerrillas. Edited by Christopher Clapham. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-253-21243-X. Map. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiii, 208. $17.95.
Whereas Africa was once noted for a proliferation of groups engaged in "wars of national liberation," its contemporary polity is increasingly characterized by insurgencies directed against indigenous governments. In some cases, of course, insurgency is a direct consequence of preindependence rifts among nationalists, as in the case of UNITA in Angola. For the most part, however, current African insurgencies have arisen from the breakdown of postcolonial structures, albeit that the ensuing crises sometimes reflect artificially imposed colonial divisions. It might be noted, however, that each of the eleven insurgencies studied in this volume have occurred in states that were not subject to liberation conflicts.
Broadly, the states concerned are...