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Formerly one of the four territories that made up French Equatorial Africa, Gabon maintains close ties with its former colonizer. Since independence in 1960, this republic has undergone political and economic turmoil - disorders often reflecting the national interests of the French and the limits of Gabonese autonomy. These upheavals have included attempts by its first president, Leon Mba, to establish a centralized one-party regime, a coup d'etat led by young army officers, a highly controversial French military intervention that returned Mba to power, and the restored appearance of economic and political stability in the 1980s under President Omar Bongo. French interests - and those of a number of other countries - are based on Gabon's extensive natural wealth. Significant deposits of petroleum, iron ore, manganese and uranium provide a powerful incentive for external economic involvement. At the same time, fluctuations in the international market, declining petroleum production, and questionable government spending policies have prompted economic crises and internal political disturbances.A captive of its natural riches, Gabon also struggles with a lack of identity, its future development on forces substantially beyond its control. In exploring the development of Gabon, Dr. Barnes also examines the nature of the country's political and economic systems and their colonial antecedents. Dependence on France and the multinational corporate restraints on national aspirations are examined in order to assess the prospects for a viable, independent state. ... Read more

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This book provides an essential introduction to Gabon. It covers the geography, history, sociology, economics and politics of the country in detail, assessing Gabon's achievements and the political and economic dangers it still faces. This book should be of interest to lecturers and students in international politics, African studies, business. ... Read more

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This second edition, like the first, provides both basic information and considerable detail about Gabon and its history in a form useful to both casual readers and professional scholars. The volume updates many of the earlier entries and presents the results of new research on the period between 1914 and 1940. Gardinier also synthesizes data about the transformations that have occurred since 1967 under President Omar Bongo, including the upheavals of 1990-91. The introduction presents an overview of Gabon from prehistory to the present. A detailed chronology of events of the past five centuries follows, with tables of statistical data on population, national budgets, external trade, and domestic production since 1960. Within the dictionary itself are lists of colonial govenors and Catholic bishops. The alphabetical entries of the dictionary include individuals, groups, and movements; terms and events; and capsule histories of institutions and the forty peoples. The entries encompass both the pre-colonial and colonial periods (e.g., the slave trade, concessionary groups, the Mpongwe trading polities, early anti-colonial groups) and the eras of decolonization and national independence. Education, religion, the arts, the media, and health receive attention along with politics, foreign relations, the economy, and the society. After each dictionary entry are given the most important references in the comprehensive bibliography of 1,453 books, articles, and theses. ... Read more

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This edited work by Dr. Reed and Dr. Barnes is a strong collection of essays on Gabon from leading scholars of the region and is a collection that truly lives up to its professed goal of presenting interdisciplinary approaches. Contemporary politics, AIDS and Ebola, environmental policies, food production crises, and the history of pre-colonial Gabon are among the wide variety of subjects covered with clarity. The work is also an indispensable guide for those who wish to learn more about Gabon, a country that has attracted relatively little interest in Anglophone circles. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on September 22, 2009. The length of the article is 10763 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Le geographe allemand Oskar Lenz visita le Gabon de 1874 a 1877, au moment meme ou la France commencait sa serieuse expansion dans l 'interieur du Gabon sous la direction de Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza. Des piroguiers, venant de regions renommees pour leur trafic d'esclaves le long de la riviere Ogooue, particulierement ceux des clans Adouma et Okande, chereherent a acquerir des droits commerciaux et a rouvrir des liens de trafic grace a leur service pour Lenz, Ces travailleurs reconnaissaient la valeur de leur travail, et employaient des tactiques de sabotage de pirogues et de greves pour forcer Lenz a augmenter leur salaire et a appuyer leurs demandes. Les jeunes gens d 'Adouma et d'Okande s'associerent avec Lenz pour s'enrichir et aussi pour mettre au defi leurs vieux leaders en cette epoque de bouleversement politique et economique a la fin du trafic d'esclaves de l'Atlantique au Gabon. Nous montrons, dans cet article, comment les piroguiers revendiquerent leurs droits economiques et comment ils firent la transition de traficants d'esclaves a employes des europeens a l'ouverture de l'expansion coloniale europeenne a la fin du dix-neuvieme siecle.

Citation Details
Title: Rocky rapids and sinking hopes: river travel, commercial rivalries, and political divides in Oskar Lenz's Gabon voyages, 1874-77.(Critical essay)
Author: Jeremy Rich
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 44Issue: 2Page: 215(22)

Article Type: Critical essay

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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In the second half of the nineteenth century, two very different practices of territoriality confronted each other in Southern Gabon. Clan and lineage relationships were most important in the local practice, while the French practice was informed by a territorial definition of society that had emerged with the rise of the modern nation-state and industrial capitalism. This modern territoriality used an array of bureaucratic instruments - such as maps and censuses - previously unknown in equatorial Africa. Such instruments denied the existence of locally created territories and were fundamental to the exercise of colonial power. Thus modern territoriality imposed categories and institutions foreign to the peoples to whom they were applied. As colonial power became more effective from the 1920s on, those institutions started to be appropriated by Gabonese cultural elites who negotiated their meanings in reference to their own traditions. The result was a strongly ambiguous condition that left its imprint on the new colonial territories and subsequently the postcolonial Gabonese state.Christopher Gray was Assistant Professor of History, Florida International University ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Caution
Know before you purchase this book that it presumes you know German as well as English.The author quotes Goethe liberally in German throughtout his text and notes while offering no translation for those not fluent in German.Disregard my rating, however.I haven't read it yet, so can't evaluate it yet.Question is: will I be able to read it at all?I don't speak German. ... Read more

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Albert Schweitzer was already world famous when he was first persuaded to share with the public these candid reminiscences of early days at Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa. The multitude of brief entries in the book capture the flavor of Schweitzer's mission in vignettes and philosophical musings on the history of the land, the culture and rituals of the native people, and his medical practice. ... Read more