Endorsements

This book views the Congo crisis as a moment which changed the way America, Britain and the UN approached the process of decolonisation as it exploded tensions in North-South relations. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources from Accra, Brussels, Delhi, London, New York and Washington D.C., the book argues that the Congo crisis was not just another episode of the Cold War but a conflict of multiple dimensions which, as it evolved, demonstrated the potential and the limitations of UN agency and Afro-Asian solidarity. It highlights the role of African and Asian actors in shaping UN Congo policy by utilising their authority in the UN and traces their efforts to position the crisis as a lightning rod in the broader interaction of the process of decolonisation with the Cold War. Attempts to direct the UN mission led to the creation of permanent mechanisms through which the Afro-Asian bloc used the Congo as a paradigm to determine the course and the pace of decolonisation. For the first time, the crisis should be considered as a moment which consolidated the impact of decolonisation as not just a process that transformed the world of empires into nation-states, but one which elucidated a wider Third World critique of imperial internationalism. This book will be of interest to students and enthusiasts of the UN, the Cold War and the history of decolonisation.