Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of African Nationalism

by David Birmingham

The first African statesman to achieve world recognition was Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), who became president of the new Republic of Ghana in 1960. He campaigned ceaselessly for African solidarity and for the liberation of southern Africa from white settler rule. His greatest achievement was to win the right of black peoples in Africa to have a vote and to determine their own destiny.

He turned a dream of liberation into a political reality. He was the leader of Ghana who urged Africa to shed the colonial yoke and who inspired black people everywhere to seek their freedom.

This revised edition of Birmingham's fine and accessible biography chronicles the public accomplishments of this extraordinary leader, who faced some of the century's most challenging political struggles over colonial transition. African nationalism, and pan-Africanism. It also relates some of the personal trials of a complex individual.

As a student in America in the late 1930s, Nkrumah, shy, disorganized, but ambitious and persistent, earned four degrees in ten years. For political training he then went to England. Nkrumah found writing difficult throughout his lifetime, but once back in his African homeland, with its oral heritage, Nkrumah blossomed as a charming conversationalist, a speechmaker, and eventually a visionary and inspiring leader.

Nkrumah's crusades were controversial, however, and in the 1960s he gradually lost his heroic stature both among his own people and among his fellow leaders. He lived his last years in exile.

This remarkable life story, which touches on many of the issues facing modern Africa, will open a window of understanding for the general leader as well as for graduate and undergraduate classes.

In this new edition, Birmingham also examines Nkrumah's exile and provides insight into the image of Nkrumah that has emerged in the light of research recently published.

Genres: Africa, History, Biography, Ghana, Politics, Nonfiction

153 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1998

Reviews

[Edina · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you live a certain reality or at least some version of it, you tend to be complacent and this is why it has taken me so long to read anything on Ghana's first president. If this book has done one thing, it has raised so many questions and created a need for me to do some deeper reading into Kwame Nkrumah's life and works.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

6th of March 1957. Ghana becomes independent. No war, no violence: here was just the end of a political process started a few years before. Behind all that was one man: Kwame Nkrumah, Black activist, pan-Africanist, politician... A man who, since then, has been celebrated like a hero in Africa.

David Birmingham delivers here a very short book (five chapters, 120 pages) which is an absolute must-read for anyone wanting to know more about such a charismatic figure.

We follow his years as a student in the USA, where he discovered Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, George Padmore... We follow his life in London, where he engaged with socio-communist and pan-Africanist circles. We follow him back to Ghana, where he would join the UGCC, a party pro-independentist, before, fed up with its internal quarrels, create his own. From then on, things will take a drastic turn: it will be violence and a spell in jail before, following his victory during parliamentary elections, he would successfully collaborate with the British, a collaboration which, step by step, would lead to the independence of his country.

His presidency will be for more controversial. First, there are his failures, which had led to an economic crisis and increasing protests. Then, there are his dictatorial tendencies, him who will hold the country under firm grip until being overthrown in 1966 by a military coup, exiled himself in Guinea, then die, in an hospital in Bucharest.

It's a short read, so, very fluid and clear. Dealing with such a man, will all his idiosyncrasies, certainly must not have been easy, but David Birmingham did so rather brilliantly. The fact that he doesn't try neither to laud him nor to discredit him, but, limits himself to blunt facts all along, makes this the perfect introduction to discover such a key figure.

[Lauren Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book on Kwame Nkrumah written by an oppressor. It’s been hard to find books on Nkrumah that aren’t written by white scholars. I will continue my research.

[Derek M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly sympathetic, short and concise account of Africa's first independent leader and pan-africanist martyr. Addresses the contradictions between industrialization within a country with an agricultural majority. Briefly addresses the neo-colonial exploitation within massive state projects as the volta dam as well as nationalizing parts of the mining industry. David Birmingham being who he is, of course cannot escape the often paternalizing characterization of Nkrumah as "naive and eager to please" which is betrayed by the literature Nkrumah wrote throughout his life advocating for class struggle and the fight and against colonialism for a unified Africa. Read for a history of Nkrumah and his life mostly as a political leader in the beginning of Ghanaian independence, and less of a history of his political theory as a pan-africanist and African Marxist thinker.

[Craig Werner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The view from about 55,000 feet. Birmingham provides a quick overview of Nkrumah's rise and fall, short on detail, long on judgements. Best on the early life, education, and early resistance to the British. The treatment of global and African politics in the Sixties is very very thin and a bit deceptive.

[Greta · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Birmingham brings African history in to clear focus. His talent for making the complex politics of the 20th century very easy to understand must be based on his in depth knowledge of the subject. I want to read more, more, more by this talented man on the subject of Africa.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and interesting book. Great insight into Ghana and its first president, Kwame Nkrumah.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great Book. I think Birmingham should have gone into the unfair practices of the World Bank & Western influences in Ghana (Volta Project).