Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa
In the mid-twentieth century, the struggle against colonial rule fundamentally reshaped the world and the lives of the majority of the world’s population. Decolonization, Black and Brown freedom movements, the establishment of the United Nations and NATO, an exploding Cold War, a burgeoning world human rights movement, all became part of the dramatic events that swept through Africa at a furious pace, with fifty nations gaining independence in roughly fifty years. Meanwhile, the United States emerged as the most powerful and influential nation in the world, with the ability—politically, economically, militarily—and principles to help or hinder the transformation of the African continent.

Tears, Fire, and Blood offers a sweeping history of how the United States responded to decolonization in Africa. James H. Meriwether explores how Washington, grappling with national security interests and racial prejudices, veered between strengthening African nationalist movements seeking majority rule and independence and bolstering anticommunist European allies seeking to maintain white rule. Events in Africa helped propel the Black freedom struggle around the world and ultimately forced the United States to confront its support for national ideals abroad as it fought over how to achieve equality at home.
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Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa
In the mid-twentieth century, the struggle against colonial rule fundamentally reshaped the world and the lives of the majority of the world’s population. Decolonization, Black and Brown freedom movements, the establishment of the United Nations and NATO, an exploding Cold War, a burgeoning world human rights movement, all became part of the dramatic events that swept through Africa at a furious pace, with fifty nations gaining independence in roughly fifty years. Meanwhile, the United States emerged as the most powerful and influential nation in the world, with the ability—politically, economically, militarily—and principles to help or hinder the transformation of the African continent.

Tears, Fire, and Blood offers a sweeping history of how the United States responded to decolonization in Africa. James H. Meriwether explores how Washington, grappling with national security interests and racial prejudices, veered between strengthening African nationalist movements seeking majority rule and independence and bolstering anticommunist European allies seeking to maintain white rule. Events in Africa helped propel the Black freedom struggle around the world and ultimately forced the United States to confront its support for national ideals abroad as it fought over how to achieve equality at home.
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Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa

Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa

by James H. Meriwether
Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa
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Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa

Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa

by James H. Meriwether

Overview

In the mid-twentieth century, the struggle against colonial rule fundamentally reshaped the world and the lives of the majority of the world’s population. Decolonization, Black and Brown freedom movements, the establishment of the United Nations and NATO, an exploding Cold War, a burgeoning world human rights movement, all became part of the dramatic events that swept through Africa at a furious pace, with fifty nations gaining independence in roughly fifty years. Meanwhile, the United States emerged as the most powerful and influential nation in the world, with the ability—politically, economically, militarily—and principles to help or hinder the transformation of the African continent.

Tears, Fire, and Blood offers a sweeping history of how the United States responded to decolonization in Africa. James H. Meriwether explores how Washington, grappling with national security interests and racial prejudices, veered between strengthening African nationalist movements seeking majority rule and independence and bolstering anticommunist European allies seeking to maintain white rule. Events in Africa helped propel the Black freedom struggle around the world and ultimately forced the United States to confront its support for national ideals abroad as it fought over how to achieve equality at home.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469664231
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 10/19/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 320
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

James H. Meriwether is professor of history at California State University, Channel Islands, and author of Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1936–1961.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A sweeping narrative and explanation of how the United States, particularly the U.S. government, responded to the liberation of Africa from colonial bondage.... [T]his is a big story, and well told.”—Thomas Borstelmann, author of Just Like Us: The American Struggle to Understand Foreigners

“Meriwether skillfully fuses ‘top-down’ accounts of U.S. diplomacy with the ‘bottom-up’ anticolonial actions of activists to provide a multifaceted account of this relationship that emphasizes the agency of nongovernmental actors in shaping how the United States engaged with the African continent.”—Nicholas Grant, author of Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945-1960

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