Building States from Colonies

CHAPTER 7 · 1963–1979 · The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994

The flags were up; now came the harder thing — turning a colony into a country. The map goes quiet in places and violent in others, and both tell the same story: the new states were trying to build nations inside borders drawn in European boardrooms, with economies designed to serve Europe, and almost no time to do it. The founding decision was the OAU’s: meeting in Addis Ababa in 1963 (the marker) and Cairo in 1964, Africa’s leaders pledged to keep the colonial borders exactly as inherited. It was a fateful choice — argued both ways to this day. Redraw the borders and you invite endless seces

The turn: Addis Ababa & Cairo, 1963–64 — the borders are frozen.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.