Final Exam Questions

Here are the questions for the final exam:

1. How did European colonialism change Africa and African societies? (see especially 10/24 blog post)

2. Since independence, what have been the greatest challenges for African countries? (see especially11/2 blog post)

3. What is the greatest crisis of contemporary Africa? Describe the causes and implications of the crisis of your choice (e.g., AIDS, Islamic fundamentalism, debt, populations growth).

Taking It Beyond the Classroom

As we discuss the research projects this week, let's also look around for ways to take what we've learned beyond the classroom and beyond the semester. For example, there's a play being performed in Berkeley that might excite your interest: Breakfast with Mugabe. Even just reading about it in the linked review will certainly surprise and please you with how much you now know.

In the Time of AIDS

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 13:

Structural Adjustment

• In the 1980s, what did the IMF (define IMF) require of African countries wanting loans? 

• What is "democratic demand inflation"?

• What was the price of success in Ghana and Uganda?

• Where were the IMF's reforms least important, and where were they most damaging?

• What were the consequences for Zimbabwe?

• In 1997, the IMF switched strategies to what?

State Contraction and Cultural Change

• What happened to the education system?

• What happened to healthcare?

• What was the new focus of migration?

• What were the effects of unemployment? Informal occupations?

• What happened to the status of women?

• What created ethnic/social solidarities?

• Anything interesting going on with religion?

• What are millenarian beliefs? Radical dualism?

• What was "the most common urban disturbance"?

• Describe the phenomenon of youth cultures.

• What is an NGO?

Political Change

• What was the political situation in 1989, and what was it five years later?
• What brought about the change?
• What influence did social groups and the military play?
• What effect did the end of the Cold War have?
• How was democratization viewed by urban and rural communities?
• Why did some analysts in 1997 think that democratization had failed? Were they right?
• What is the difference between presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy?
• Where did Islamic fundamentalism originate?
• What made some guerrilla movements destructive and others less so?
• What led to the Rwanda genocide? (start with first full paragraph on p. 307)

Fertility Decline

• What was the main reason for a decline in fertility?

The AIDS Epidemic

• When and where did AIDS originate?
• FYI antenatal = prenatal
• Why did HIV spread less quickly into West Africa?
• Why were African governments slow to respond to the crisis?
• What were the two sources of hope after the mid-90s?

Industrialization & Race

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 12:

• How did the Witwatersrand goldfield differ from the Kimberly diamond mines? 
• Why were African miners wages so low?
• How did rural economies and families adapt?
• What were "distinctive features" of South African industrialization?
• Following the Anglo-Boer War (if you don't remember what that is, look it up here), what did the British do to try to retain their supremacy over the Afrikaner South African Republic?
• What was the Group Areas Act of 1950, and what made the government so powerful then?
• Why was mass non-violent nationalism like Gandhi's not successful in South Africa?
• What was the Soweto Uprising of 1976, and why was it important?
• What was the significance of the township revolt of 1984? What were important international developments?
• At the end of the chapter, the author says that there was a deeper reality than confrontation between the races. What was it?

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 7:

• What happened to the field of African history as "Africa entered a period of prolonged economic downturn and political turmoil"? 
• What is it about Africa that makes it seem like the continent is "locked in Permanent crisis"?
• Who is Waa Kamisoko, and how has he adapted his traditional role to modern circumstances? What was most controversial?
• What is the deal with the historical narratives of the Ndebele people? Heroes Day?
• What was the "first major reorientation in the field" of African history in the 1970s?
• What was the legacy of Marxist anthropology?
• Why is witchcraft now a focus of historians?
• What is your reaction to the photograph by the artist Samuel Fosso (figure 29) or the one above?
• Who is Mobutu Sese Seko? check the wiki page
• Who creates the dominant political narrative, and where can alternatives be found?
• What was the mission of African historians after the colonial period?
• What debates arose among historians and where did they mainly play out?
• Explain the issue of the relationship between history and heritage?
• How is the question relevant to the history of the slave trade and of South Africa?

Independent Africa

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 6:

• What caused the collapse of colonialism after WW II? 
• Which parts of Africa were independent in 1945, in the mid-50s, in the mid-60s?
• What is the debate over the dynamics of decolonization?
• What does the book mean by the "second colonial occupation," and what was its impact?
• What were the "crucibles of change"?
• How did France handle its colonies and colonial subjects after WW II?
• Describe most African politicians of the time and their main challenges.
• What was the South African model and whom did it appeal to?
• What is significant about Algeria's independence?
• What effects did nationalism and anti-colonialism have on the field of African history in the 1950s and 1960s?
• Was the new history useful to African politicians?
• What approaches to African history were more prominent in the French-speaking world?
• How did Congo become "Africa's first Cold War battlefield"?
• What were the goals of most African leaders in the 1960s?
• What happened in the 1970's?

Check out this movie trailer.

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 11:

Rapid population growth 

• In contrast to population growth between WW I and WW II, what was the main reason for population growth after 1940?
• Modern medicine and what else led to "the most sudden and rapid population growth the world is ever likely to see"?

Liberation

• What effect did the defeated Mau Mau insurrection have on Kenyan politics?
• Contrast the politics of Uganda and Tanganyika.
• Why was support for nationalism so strong in the poorer rural areas of colonies of white settlement?
• How did nationalism effect women? 
• How did young men profit from nationalism?

Economic development

• Before the 1970s, what three main directions had economic growth taken in Africa? 
• What was the most fundamental reason for economic crisis?
• What role did oil play? (Look at oil producing African countries, too.)
• What did most 1960s economists think was the best way to achieve development?
• What were some of the diverse economic strategies, and why did they all lead to similar crises during the 1980s?
• What replaced labor as the crucial scarce resource?
• Why did extensive drought lead to famine in some countries and not others?

Politics

• What were the three underlying political realities? What compounded the problems?
• What were the two patterns of civil war represented by Sudan and Chad on the one hand and Angola and Mozambique on the other?
• What "bred blatantly ethnic, clientelist, and corrupt politics"?
• Describe the system of ruling elites?
• What three institutions supported ruling elites?
• What did newly independent regimes do in order to dominate society?

Colonial Change 1918-1950

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 10:

Economic Change

• What was the major consequence of Africa's colonial period? 
• What's a lorry, and what effects did it have?
• What trades grew and which ones collapsed?
• How did agriculture change in this period?
• What were the impediments to capitalism? (p. 224)
• What happened with European agriculture?
• Why did Africans become migrants, and what effects did migration have? (pp. 225ff)
• What were African expectations and realities of urban life?
• What were consequences of the Great Depression in Africa?

Education and Religion

• What was the draw of education? 
• What was the main distinction between Indian and African education outcomes?
• Why were young people attracted to Christianity?
• How did Christianity interact with indigenous practices and traditions?
• Why did independent churches come about?
• How did the Islam contrast with Christianity in this period? (p. 236)
• How did indigenous religions adapt?
• What kinds of movements became a characteristic of the colonial period?

Political Change

• What transformed Africa's politics? 
• Were colonial powers interested in maintaining control or transferring it to Africans?
• What is the Muslim Brotherhood, and where and when was it founded?
• What led to terrorist violence in Tunisia and militant insurrection in Algeria?
• What was the fate of Italy's colonies after after WW II?
• Who is Haile Selassie? Why is he important in Jamaica? Look him up here.
• What were the two major political levels in Africa? Why?
• What/who fostered tribal identities and why?
• Given that "territorial boundaries and identities were colonial creations," what did Africans focus political action on instead?
• Why did WW II focus African politics towards nationalism, and what were the main challenges nationalists faced?
• What was the Mau Mau guerrilla war? Look it up here.
• Why was Britain afraid of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland joining South Africa?

The Family

• How did some young men gain greater freedom, and how did the old respond?
• Did the status of women change? (check region by region)
• Overall was there more change or more continuity in family relationships in the 20th century?

Health and Demography

• What was the most important consequence of colonial occupation? 
• What reduced mortality in times of famine?
• What was the focus of European medicine?
• Who were colonial Africa's "chief reservoir of misery"? What was the source of the problem?
• Was increased birthrate or a declining deathrate the dominant mechanism in population growth?
• What reduced infant mortality?

Colonialism

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 5:

• How was colonial rule in Africa different from colonial rule in Latin America?
• How has the study of the colonial period changed?
• What are the "key facts" about European conquest?
• Who resisted the Europeans? (see alsoAFRICANS,  p. 201)
• What/who facilitated the conquest?
• What's special about Ethiopia?
• What was the Maji Maji rebellion? (see also AFRICANS, p. 202)
• The "first successful human rights campaign of the 20th century" targeted what?
• What impact did WW I have?
• How did French and British approaches to controlling colonies differ?
• Why did some Africans embrace colonialism?
• How did Europeans run Africa "on the cheap"?
• What caused widespread social change? (p. 106)
• Define "ornamentalism."
• What explains, in part, the political authoritarianism of contemporary Africa?

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 9: 

• How did Britain manipulate other European countries (p. 196) and interests (p. 197) in Africa?
• What brought about the Anglo-Boer War and what were its outcomes and costs?
• Who made up most colonial armies? (p. 199)
• What was more burdensome than taxes?
• Who were the most powerful Africans in colonial Africa? (pp. 205f)
• What did European governments handle and what did they leave to private enterprise? (p. 209)
• Which region experienced the most brutal exploitation and why?
• What effect did railroad building have?
• Why was famine such an issue during the early colonial period?

Video from this week's class can be found on-line here.