Global Africa

This book of essays written over the last three post-apartheid decades uniquely provides profiles of 104 pan-African figures, mostly from the 1.4 billion-strong African population and its estimated 250 million-strong diaspora in the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean. It thus provides a concise profile of the most important figures of Africa and its diaspora. The profiles also include global Western figures engaging with African issues, assessed from an African perspective. The essays cover, in a multi-disciplinary manner, diverse historical and political figures, technocrats, activists, writers, public intellectuals, musical and film artists, and sporting figures. They acknowledge the continuing legacies and impacts of the twin scourges of slavery and colonialism, but also seek to capture the zeitgeist of the post-apartheid era. The book argues that the culmination of Africa’s liberation struggles was mirrored by similar battles in the Caribbean as well as the American civil rights movement, with all three involving citizens of global Africa.

Adekeye Adebajo is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (CAS). He was director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) for five years, and executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) in Cape Town between 2003 and 2016. He is the author of eight books including The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War; The Eagle and the Springbok: Essays on Nigeria and South Africa; and Thabo Mbeki: Africa’s Philosopher-King. He is the editor of 10 books including The Pan-African Pantheon: Prophets, Poets, and Philosophers; and Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent. Professor Adebajo holds a doctorate from Oxford University in England and is a columnist for Business Day (South Africa), the Guardian (Nigeria), and the Gleaner (Jamaica).

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