The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring

Anyone who wants to understand what is going on in Africa today needs to read this book. The birth of the African Renaissance and Afro-Arab Spring has injected hope and produced its disappointments. The continent's future is uncertain. I suggest, however, that future generations will look back to this time as a crucial turning point in African and global politics. This book plumbs the depths of Africa's quest for rebirth, often against overwhelming forces of resistance-with tentacles reaching deep into the West, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and elsewhere. -- Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus (Cape Town-South Africa)

Addresses the often unspoken connection between South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. In this book, contributors shed light on a critical conversation about the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa.The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring addresses the often unspoken connection between the powerful call for a political-cultural renaissance that emerged with the end of South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Looking between southern and northern Africa, the transcontinental line from Cape to Cairo that for so long supported colonialism, its chapters explore the deep roots of these two decisive events and demonstrate how they are linked by shared opposition to legacies of political, economic, and cultural subjugation. As they work from African, Islamic, and Western perspectives, the book's contributors shed important light on a continent's difficult history and undertake a critical conversation about whether and how the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa, a beginning that may well reshape the contours of global affairs.