Review: Africa Zambian Crisis Behaviour
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| Author | David Black |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209605100108 |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
AFRICA
ZAMBIAN
CRISIS
BEHAVIOUR
Confronting
Rhodesia's
Unilateral
Declaration
of
Independence
Douglas
G.
Anglin
Kingston
&
Toronto:
McGill-Queen's
University Press,
1994,
xvi,
389pp,
$55.00
It
has
become
increasingly
commonplace
for
Western
commentary
to
treat
most
African
governments
and
leadership
as
having sharply
lim-
ited
capacity
and
competence
at
best
and
as
being
corrupt
and
pred-
atory
at
worst.
Zambia
is
no
exception.
It
is
refreshing,
then,
to
read
Douglas
Anglin's
well-crafted
account
of
the
Zambian
government's
response
to
the
crisis
precipitated
by
the
Rhodesian
settler
regime's
Unilateral Declaration
of
Independence
(UDI).
On
Anglin's
evidence,
the
infant
Zambian
government
of
Kenneth
Kaunda
performed
com-
mendably
in
terms
of gathering,
processing,
and
evaluating
informa-
tion
and
of
decision-making
under
conditions
of
severe
stress.
By
contrast, the
British
government of
Harold
Wilson
was
by
turns
irres-
olute, duplicitous,
and
inept.
Given
Anglin's
long
and
close
association
with
Zambia,
the
reader
must
make
some
allowance
for
his
'deep
sense
of
solidarity
with
Zam-
bians
in
the
dilemma
they
confronted'
(p
xvi)
when
assessing his
anal-
ysis.
Nevertheless,
this
is
an
exceptionally
well-researched and
organized
book
-
no
mean
feat
given
the
challenges
of
primary
research
on
African
foreign
policies
-
and
his
case
is
solidly
made. How
widely
its
implications
can
be
extended
beyond
the
relatively
brief
period
on
which it
is
based
is
less
certain.
Zambian
Crisis
Behaviour
combines
the
concerns
of
the
area
spe-
cialist
with
those
of
the
social
scientist
interested
in
patterns of
crisis
behaviour.
In
terms
of
the
former,
it succeeds
admirable.
Anglin's
long
scholarly
preoccupation
with
Zambia
and
southern
Africa
yields
a
rich
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