Reinventing the Colonial State

About the Book

Reinventing the Colonial State: Constitutionalism, One-Party Rule, and Civil War in Sierra Leone critically examines the peculiarities of this West African state's colonial and postcolonial history, politics, and constitutional development as keys to understanding its chronic and persistent underdevelopment, political instability, civil war, and near collapse in the 1990s. This approach situates the political continuities between the colonial and postcolonial states at the very center of the discourse about issues related to governance and development.

About the Author

I earned my doctoral degree in history from the University of Akron (Ohio) in 1991 and a juris doctor (J.D.) from Jones School of Law in Montgomery (Alabama) in 1998. Since 1991, I have taught introductory courses in the history of sub-Saharan Africa, among others, and researched the topic that now forms the title of my manuscript, namely the reinvention of the colonial state in the post-colony, one party systems of government, political instability, and civil war in Sierra Leone. Recently, I worked on the presidential campaign of the current President of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Ernest Bai Koroma, and continue to pay very close attention to issues of governance and development in post-civil war Sierra Leone. I am the author of Tanganyika Under International Mandate, 1919?1945 (University Press of America, 1995), and co-editor of Stakes in Africa-United States Relations: Proposals for Equitable Partnership (iUniverse, 2007). Currently, I am an associate professor of history at Fort Valley State University in Georgia.