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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Raphael Chijioke Njoku, "Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans: Narrating Decolonization, Postwar Commonwealth, and Africa’s Development, 1947-2022" (Leuven UP, 2024)
Description: The road to Queen Elizabeth II’s implementation of African reforms was rough, especially in the first two decades following her ascension to the throne. In Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans (Leuven UP, 2024), Raphael Chijioke Njoku examines Queen Elizabeth II’s role in the African decolonization trajectories and the postcolonial state’s quest for genuine political and economic liberation since 1947. By locating Elizabeth at the center of Anglophone Africa’s independence agitations, the account harnesses the African interests to tease out the monarch’s dilemma of complying with Whitehall’s decolonization schemes while building an inclusive and unified Commonwealth i...