Is Violence Inevitable in Africa?

The contributors of these nine articles believe previous treatments of the subject, such as NGO reports and theoretical studies, lack clear focus at the general level. In response, they analyze the causes of conflict in Africa, review the various approaches to prevention or conflict resolution, and describe some of the practical difficulties in ending violence. Their topics include theories of war as applied to Angola, ethnicity and citizenship in Sub-Saharan Africa, the crisis in natural resources as seen from "below," empirical perspectives on efforts toward conflict resolution, the relationship between area studies and the analysis of conflicts in the evaluation of preventative practice, the social cost of conflict in the Congo, power-sharing and democratization in the two-phase implementation process, administrative decentralization and political conflict in Mali, and principles practitioners should consider in conflict transformation. Annotation c2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ulf Engel, Dr. phil. habil. (1999), Dr. phil. (1994) in Political Science, University of Hamburg, is Associate Professor at the University of Leipzig. His work includes Africa and the North (Routledge, 2005) and Die Afrikapolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1949-1999 (Lit-Verlag, 2002). Anna Maria Gentili, is Professor of History and Institutions of Afro-Asian Countries at the University of Bologna. Major publications include Elites e Regimi politici in Africa Occidentale (1974), Africa come storia (1980) and Il Leone e il cacciatore. Storia dell’Africa subsahariana (1995).Patrick Chabal, is a Professor in the University of London. His latest books are Africa Works (1999), A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa (2002) and Power in Africa (1994). He will publish in 2005 a book on culture and politics.