Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Revisionism in Postcolonial Africa

This groundbreaking study investigates defining themes in the field of social memory studies as they bear on the politics of post-Cold-War, post-apartheid Southern Africa. Alice Dinerman offers a detailed chronicle of the Mozambican government’s attempts to revise the country's troubled postcolonial past with a view to negotiating the political challenges posed by the present. In doing so, she lays bare the path-dependence of memory practices, while tracing their divergent trajectories, shifting meanings and varied combinations within ruling discourse and performance. _x005F_x000D_ Central themes include: _x005F_x000D_ _x005F_x000D_ the interplay between past and present_x005F_x000D_ the dialectic between remembering and forgetting_x005F_x000D_ the dynamics between popular and official memory discourses_x005F_x000D_ the politics of acknowledgement._x005F_x000D_ Dinerman’s original analysis is essential reading for students of modern Africa, the sociology of memory, Third World politics and post-conflict societies.