Metaphor and the slave trade in West African Literature

Abstract

However, the trouble with McCracken’s territorial frame is that questions about imperial geographies and imaginations are left unaddressed. This limitation is especially clear in his discussion of the settler-dominated Central African Federation, where there is little consideration of changing understandings of development in the Colonial Office. Federation revealed that Britain was committed to development in Malawi, but not to Malawi’s future as a political unit. The book’s final section centers on the process of decolonization. In contrast to the eclecticism of previous chapters, this section is principally devoted to a revisionist interpretation of Malawian nationalism. Drawing extensively from recent studies of the Congress Party, McCracken begins by tracing connections between rural protest movements and party-building after World War II. Popular discontent over conservation rules, land shortages, and racial discrimination laid a foundation for a national coalition of educated elites, chiefs, and peasants. Congress leaders juggled populist and constitutionalist strategies, partly by design but mostly as an opportunistic response to simmering rural protests. In the latter chapters, McCracken turns to high politics. With independence looming, Congress focused on the consolidation of political power in the villages, government, and party. Only the party proved difficult, as struggles within the leadership eventually threatened to topple Kamuzu Banda during the 1964 Cabinet Crisis. McCracken insists that intra-party struggles were motivated by political influence rather than ideology. The dominance of Congress, and Kamuzu in particular, is perhaps the most lasting change in a book that emphasizes continuity throughout. A History of Malawi is an essential reference for scholars of Malawi. McCracken’s focus on deep patterns of historical change, together with the thoroughness of the research, makes for a valuable contribution to multiple literatures. There is, however, comparatively little engagement with the wider Africanist historiography. McCracken could have pursued suggestive threads such as squatter movements in a comparative framework (238), or expand his discussion of welfare associations with recent scholarship on colonial intermediaries (235). The book nonetheless lends itself to broader readings. Historians of Malawi undoubtedly will benefit most from McCracken’s comprehensive history, but Africanist historians should take heed of the rich material for transnational or comparative research as well.