THE RISE AND FALL OF KWAME NKRUMAH

by Henry L. Bretton ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A Study of Personal Rule in Africa"" is the subtitle of this inspection of the ex-ruler of Ghana and the personal politics he created in his name. A colder look at any government is not to be had. Bretton taught at the University of Ghana and thus had an opportunity to see as well as study the working of one-man party rule and its effects upon an emerging society. His treatment is, as he admits, free of the usual historical, cultural and sociological setting of most books on African politics into which the main figures are supposed to tidily fit. More pragmatic and interested mainly in the political structure surrounding Ghana's ""Redeemer,"" he places Nkrumah as an intellectual eclectic in the midst of a stream of influential advisors, foreign and domestic. Most of the book is given over to the resulting party structure and government policies which evolved as constitutionalism faded away: the thought and rhetoric of that strange political phenomenon, part Socialist, part Capitalist, part Fascist, part Magic, called Nkrumahism. Although Bretton's book may tweak a few noses, its prejudice is only toward the truth.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Praeger

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION