Beyond the Neocolonial: Africa and the Dialectics of Human Emancipation

Neocosmos, Michael

ISBN 10: 1990263887 / ISBN 13: 9781990263880

Published by Daraja Press, 2026

About this Item

2026. Philosophy. paperback. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9781990263880

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Beyond the Neocolonial: Africa and the Dialectics of Human Emancipation
• Publisher: Daraja Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1990263887
• ISBN 13: 9781990263880
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Humanity faces existential crises driven by the persistence of neocolonial capitalism and a state form that continues to de-humanise the majority. In Beyond the Neocolonial, Michael Neocosmos argues that the failure to enable, let alone to realise the popular desire for freedom in post-independence Africa lies in the continuity of the colonial state and the dominance of analytical, statist thought over the transformative power of the dialectic. Tracing the genealogy of emancipatory politics from the ancient wisdom of Egypt’s Ma’at and Ionia’s isonomia to the revolutionary theories of Lenin, Mao, Fanon, and Cabral, Neocosmos asserts that politics must be understood as a collective thought-practice of universal equality. He challenges the “stasis” of the current world order by recovering silenced histories of African popular inventiveness: from the egalitarian society constructed by the Bossales in Haiti to the mass democratic experiments of the United Democratic Front in South Africa. Critiquing the exhausted “party form” and the myth of the “heroic liberator,” the book highlights the emancipatory potential within African popular culture, arguing that proverbs and the Palaver contain latent prescriptions for resolving contradictions and healing community. This work is a call to abandon the “epistemology of ignorance” and revive a dialectics of becoming, locating the agency for a truly human future not in the state, but in the masses who make history.

About the Author

Michael Neocosmos is a Professor Emeritus in Humanities at Rhodes University in South Africa. He was previously a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Connecticut's Humanities Institute in the United States and a Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.