| A Socialist Peace?: Explaining the Absence of War in an African Country Contributor(s): McGovern, Mike (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 022645360X ISBN-13: 9780226453606 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $31.68 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Political Science | Peace - History | Africa - West |
| Dewey: 966.520 |
| LCCN: 2016049358 |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.79 lbs) 240 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - West Africa |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: For the last twenty years, the West African nation of Guinea has exhibited all of the conditions that have led to civil wars in other countries, and Guineans themselves regularly talk about the inevitability of war. Yet the country has narrowly avoided conflict again and again. In A Socialist Peace?, Mike McGovern asks how this is possible, how a nation could beat the odds and evade civil war. Guinea is rich in resources, but its people are some of the poorest in the world. Its political situation is polarized by fiercely competitive ethnic groups. Weapons flow freely through its lands and across its borders. And, finally, it is still recovering from the oppressive regime of S kou Tour . McGovern argues that while Tour 's reign was hardly peaceful, it was successful--often through highly coercive and violent measures--at establishing a set of durable national dispositions, which have kept the nation at peace. Exploring the ambivalences of contemporary Guineans toward the afterlife of Tour 's reign as well as their abiding sense of socialist solidarity, McGovern sketches the paradoxes that undergird political stability. |
Contributor Bio(s): McGovern, Mike: - Mike McGovern is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. |