The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah: Epic Heroism in Africa and the Diaspora

Author: Ahmad Rahman Price: $ 32.97 (new) $ 50.50 (used) Medium: Hardcover (268 pages) Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan 2007-01-15

Editorial Description

This book is a new and innovative approach to writing a political biography and intellectual history.  Ahmad A. Rahman provides a fresh perspective on Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to become Africa's first sub-Saharan country to gain independence after World War II.  Rahman analyzes Nkrumah's behavior through utilizing the epic hero patterns of Call, Quest, and Return.  The scholarship is unique  in its attention to Nkrumah's experiences in the United States, using recently declassified U.S. and British government documents.  Nkrumah is portrayed as an epic hero who gained stature by overcoming enemies but who, like Africa's previous epic heroes, eventually lost his "throne" to increasingly stronger opponents. 

Reader Reviews

The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah
I want to call attention to a new important book that I think many of our members might have missed. It is The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah: Epic Heroism in Africa and the Diaspora, by Ahmad Rahman.

The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah is unlike any other book of history I have ever read. Rahman challenges himself with two problems. First,how to account for Kwame Nkrumah's often out of the ordinary behavior in assessing his life. Second, why does Africa, the richest continent in the world , have the poorest people? To answer these questions Rahman invents a new model. He applies the Call,Quest, Return framework of epics and myths to understand the behavior of Nkrumah in Africa (CALL), the African Diaspora (Quest),and finally back in Africa (Return). He also explains Nkrumah's modern behavior with brilliant parallels to the behavior of epic heroes, like Sundiata,Samori Toure, Mwindi,and Sonson of Kaarta. By doing this,he shows where previous authors have denounced Nkrumah's behavior, Nkrunah was acting within an ancient historical/cultural way of epic "heroes" who dedicated their lives to their people. Rather than take what Rahman calls other authors'"intellectual shortcuts" by denouncing Nkrumah's behavior, Rahman did the meticulous historical research to explain why Nkrumah acted as he did. He showed that Nkrumah joined the black Freemasons when he attended Lincoln University. He proved that the structure of these Prince Hall Masons became Nkrumah's model for his conspiratorial organizing later in London. Rahman's book also showed how the African American messianic religious leader Father Divine became a model for Nkrumah to be Ghana and Africa's "divine father."

In the final chapter, the author used the US State Department and the CIA's own documents. He proves that these two entities conspired so that Africa would not unite. The US government's own documents show them dreading that a united Afica could "shift the balance of power in the world." They first conspired with the Belgians to murder Patrice Lumumba in the Congo to stop the success of Pan-Africanism. Finally, they conspired with Ghanian traitors to murder and /or overthrow Nkrumah.The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah is the most innovative and well-written piece of biography I have ever read. It is well worth the money.

Douglas E. Irwin
Chicago,Ill.