Ghana's First Republic 1960-1966: The Pursuit of the Political Kingdom

By: Trevor Jones

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Synopsis: Originally published in 1976, this book describes one of the most important and colourful episodes in black Africa’s twentieth-century history. Kwame Nkrumah, the dynamic leader who brought Ghana to independence in 1957, abandoned the Westminster model of representative government to which his country once seemed so well suited. He reached out towards the goals of Pan-Africanism and socialism, emphasizing the primacy of political action to regenerate his people and their continent. But his vision of the ‘political kingdom’ led quickly to the destruction of his Republic and his hopes. Using the (then) latest evidence to examine political life, parliament, civil service, farmers, workers and army in Ghana’s first Republic, the author argues that Nkrumah’s experiment failed because his rule was strong enough to distort traditional values but was unable to transform them. The result was a bizarre and paralysing mixture of despotism and anarchy which defied political analysis in conventional terms.