A study of the clash of two traditions, British liberalism and African nationalism, and an examination of how Michael Blundell in Kenya and Garfield Todd in Zimbabwe used their liberal backgrounds to further the future of their adopted countries, despite threats and detention. Both Blundell and Todd believed that political leaders had a responsibility to serve the needs of the people as a condition of national development. By the time each came to power, European colonization had had a profoundly negative effect on the lives of Africans; Blundell and Todd sought to correct this by putting their positive views of Africans into practice. While colonial governments designed strategies for controlling Africans to serve political and economic interests at home in Europe, Africans themselves established their own effective strategy, not only to ensure their survival in the colonial setting, but also to initiate a process for the restoration of their sense of self. Michael Blundell and Garfield Todd, with their liberal beliefs, served as excellent allies in this period of a rising African consciousness. Using sources obtained in Kenya and Zimbabwe over the past 15 years, this work examines democratic traditions that have survived tumultuous times in recent years.

Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.

Against the backdrop of a politically approved view that Europeans did little to further the Zimbabwean nationalist freedom movements before Independence in 1980, this book will help to nail that misconception against a wall.The story of Garfield Todd and his various roles as Christian missionary, liberal prime minister of southern Rhodesia, high-profile opponent of UDI and its architect Ian Smith from 1965 to 1980, will surely be an eye-opener for many young people in central and southern Africa, who may never have heard of this great man who spent his life in education and public service. The role of Garfield Todd and some of the people who worked with him has been effectively airbrushed from the pages of the official Zimbabwean story. Why? is the question. Susan Woodhouse gives us the answer by telling the story of a small but influential group of men and women who dared swim against the racial current in Africa after the Second World War. Its a story told with warmth, personal insight and often great humour. This Edinburgh-based author, who Sir Garfield said knew the Todds better than anyone else, has introduced a small but dedicated group of long forgotten activists toa new generation of readers.

Between 1830 and 1886, Liberals dominated British politics. Focusing on the strategies of successive Liberal leaders, this study gives an overview of that dominance and argues that liberalism was a much more coherent force than has generally been recognized by historians.

While the need for a history of liberalism that goes beyond its conventional European limits is well recognized, the agrarian backwaters of the British Empire might seem an unlikely place to start. Yet specifically liberal preoccupations with property and freedom evolved as central to agrarian policy and politics in colonial Bengal.Ê Liberalism in Empire explores the generative crisis in understanding propertyÕs role in the constitution of a liberal polity, which intersected in Bengal with a new politics of peasant independence based on practices of commodity exchange. Thus the conditions for a new kind of vernacular liberalism were created. Andrew SartoriÕs examination shows the workings of a section of liberal policy makers and agrarian leaders who insisted that norms governing agrarian social relations be premised on the property-constituting powers of labor, which opened a new conceptual space for appeals to both political economy and the normative significance of property. It is conventional to see liberalism as traveling through the space of empire with the extension of colonial institutions and intellectual networks. SartoriÕs focus on the Lockeanism of agrarian discourses of property, however, allows readers to grasp how liberalism could serve as a normative framework for both a triumphant colonial capitalism and a critique of capitalism from the standpoint of peasant property.

This work assembles the best of Todd's (available) speeches and provides an analysis of their rhetorical and political significance. Sir Garfield Todd's (1908-2002) lifelong support of African rights earned him initial political success, subsequent imprisonment, and, finally, rightful recognition. Often labeled a liberal in the British political tradition, a closer study of Todd's rhetoric demonstrates that his politics flow directly from his religious heritage--and not from political liberalism.