The developmental years of Ghana - the first state to become independent from colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa in 1957 - were marked by the United Kingdom's effort to showcase its former colony as a model of successful democracy export for the rest of Black Africa. They called it the "Ghana Experiment". Major Western powers like the United States and West Germany participated in the attempt to keep Ghana aligned with the West. As Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah embarked on a bold anti-imperialistic, pan-African policy, Britain and the United States concerted a common strategy which accelerated Nkrumah's eventual downfall in 1966 and brought Ghana back into the Western sphere of influence.

The history of a Pan-Africanist movement based in Britain and its role in the Cold War in Africa.

A new biography of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, one of the most influential political figures in twentieth-century African history. As the first prime minister and president of the West African state of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah helped shape the global narrative of African decolonization. After leading Ghana to independence in 1957, Nkrumah articulated a political vision that aimed to free the country and the continent—politically, socially, economically, and culturally—from the vestiges of European colonial rule, laying the groundwork for a future in which Africans had a voice as equals on the international stage. Nkrumah spent his childhood in the maturing Gold Coast colonial state. During the interwar and wartime periods he was studying in the United States. He emerged in the postwar era as one of the foremost activists behind the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress and the demand for an immediate end to colonial rule. Jeffrey Ahlman’s biography plots Nkrumah’s life across several intersecting networks: colonial, postcolonial, diasporic, national, Cold War, and pan-African. In these contexts, Ahlman portrays Nkrumah not only as an influential political leader and thinker but also as a charismatic, dynamic, and complicated individual seeking to make sense of a world in transition.

The author shows the role played by Western governments and intelligence agencies in overthrowing Ghana's first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. They worked together to weaken and undermine his government, and they facilitated the military coup which ended his rule. He has used declassified material including interviews with former American ambassadors to Ghana, as well as other sources, to document his study. He contends that the Ghanaian army and police officers who overthrew Nkrumah may not have succeeded, when they did, in ousting Nkrumah had Western powers, especially the United States, not been involved in the plot to oust him. They participated in planning the coup. But he also concedes that it is possible the Ghanaian coup makers would have, on their own, succeeded later in overthrowing Nkrumah. Major Akwasi Afrifa, one of the leaders of the February 1966 coup in which Nkrumah was ousted, planned twice – in 1962 and in 1964 – to overthrow Nkrumah but the plots were discovered by the security forces before they could be carried out. The author acknowledges that Nkrumah had enemies within and faced strong opposition to his rule. But he also contends that there was a concerted effort by Western powers, especially the United States, to overthrow Nkrumah that should not be overlooked when examining his downfall. They worked in collusion with his enemies within. But even if Nkrumah did not have enemies in Ghana, the United States and other Western powers still would have worked on plans to get rid of him because he was considered to be a threat to American and Western interests in Africa. The book includes photos. His forthcoming book, “Ghana after Nkrumah,” complements this work.