A hidden history of anticolonial struggle in Africa uncovered
According to conventional wisdom, France’s empire in sub- Saharan Africa ended peacefully. But this book tells a different story. The shocking violence of a secret war roiled Cameroon in the 1950s and ’60s. A mass movement for self-determination had emerged under the leadership of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), and France responded with brutal repression. As in Algeria, French forces waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign. They eventually eradicated the opposition and installed a client dictatorship in the capital, Yaoundé.
With the world focused on the Algerian bloodbath, the conflict in Cameroon received little attention at the time. Its devastating aftermath — and tens of thousands of victims — were intentionally obscured by French authorities and their local collaborators. The Cameroon War uncovers this hidden history. It illuminates a forgotten struggle for decolonisation at the origin of neocolonial rule in Francophone Africa, a story that is still unfolding today.
What People Are Saying
"The Cameroon War throws a spotlight on an episode of Franco-Cameroonian history that is still passed over in silence." Julien Le Gros, Le Point
"A vital corrective to historical amnesia, The Cameroon War is replete with lessons for the present." Musab Younis, author of On the Scale of the World
"A must-read for anyone interested in the history of national liberation in Africa." Kevin Ochieng Okoth, author of Red Africa