The Cambridge History of the Cold War by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (review)

Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?

“…To answer this question, we need to overcome the challenge of identifying Cold War alignments in Africa. This task is conceptually difficult because there are multiple, incomplete accounts of Cold War alignment in Africa (Leffler and Westad, 2010;Immerman and Goedde, 2013), and African countries' official ties with the superpowers were fluid and represented diverse interests, making it challenging to identify clear bloc affiliations (Brzezinski, 1963;Legvold, 1970;Mazrui and Wondji, 1993). In contrast, ideological alignment should provide a stable, latent structure through which African countries could interpret their own and other countries' experiences across the continent.…”

“…In the 2010 three volume Cambridge History of the Cold War, there are only two chapters that mention Africa specifically(Leffler and Westad, 2010). The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War has a single chapter on Africa(Immerman and Goedde, 2013).6 In principle, China and Cuba have also played roles in the Cold War in Africa, with China occasionally clashing with the Soviet Union but advocating for anti-imperialist and pro-socialist development.…”