Kwame Nkrumah's Quest for Restoration: Nkrumaism and Pan-Africanism in Exile

(Hardback)

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Examining Kwame Nkrumahs time in exile, Tunde Adeleke challenges existing and popular understandings of Nkrumahs ideas and struggles.

In Kwame Nkrumahs Quest for Restoration: Nkrumaism and Pan-Africanism in Exile Tunde Adeleke examines Kwame Nkrumahs life and the six years he spent in exile in Conakry, Guinea, exploring the extraordinary efforts and resources he invested on attempts to return and regain political power. Adeleke contends that Nkrumahs overthrow and exile compelled him to reimagine, revise, and fundamentally alter the essence of Pan-Africanism. This book shows how Nkurmah spearheaded the Pan-Africanist movement for greater continental unification, deviating from some of the essential values and principles of Pan-Africanism. His time in exile exposed a personality in sharp contrast to the consummate Pan-Africanist memorialized in Black Nationalist discourses. Through textual analysis of Nkrumahs letters and political writings, Adeleke argues that Nkrumahs fundamental change and redirection on Pan-Africanism not only shaped the movements new purpose but also impacted Ghana.

Reviews

Tunde Adeleke has written a timely, must-read book about Kwame Nkrumah, the founder and first prime minister of Ghana and 'father of African nationalism,' and his final years living in exile in Conakry, Guinea, following his overthrow by a military coup in 1966. Through cogent analysis and lyrical prose, Adeleke charts Nkrumahs epic struggle to return to Ghana, regain political power, and restore a revolutionary pan-Africanism until his death in 1972. * Erik S. McDuffie, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA *
Tunde Adeleke has written a book that is sure to advance Kwame Nkrumah scholarship. Anchored on a meticulous study of Nkrumahs exilic writings framed by his overly optimistic faith in his return to Ghanas presidency and a radical change to his Pan-Africanism marked increasingly by a penchant for authoritarianism, this book is written with nuance, authority, verve, and sophistication. It performs the rare task of writing about a leading African thinkers complexity and the evolution of his thinking over time. Nkrumah scholarship will never be the same again. * Olufemi Taiwo`, Professor of Africana Studies, Cornell University, USA *

Author Bio

Tunde Adeleke is Professor of History and the African & African American Studies Program at Iowa State University, USA.