African Islands and Enclaves

Small territories and islands are significant flashpoints in the contemporary world order. They are both exposed to the vicissitudes of international power rivalries and can find it difficult to sustain a stable internal political and economic order. Originally published in 1983 this book provides a balance between enclaves and islands, between Indian and Atlantic Ocean territories and between territories that were self-governing and those that were still integrated into metropolitan political units. Each of the authors shares a close familiarity with the territories they surveyed: one that goes into a direct and sometimes brutal appreciation of the difficulties and realities of constructing a modern life in such limiting contexts

Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. For the first decade of his academic career, he worked on comparative labour issues. His books included Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974) and the co-edited collections The development of an African working class (1975), International Labour and the Third World (1987), African Labor History (1978) and the current title, Peasants and Proletarians. He subsequently wrote on the themes of migration, globalization and diasporas. His best-known work is Global diasporas: An introduction (3rd edition, 2022).