During the period 1960-64, a staggering 16 conferences and 10 constitutional commissions were held for British colonies in east and central Africa. This book is the first of its kind to provide a detailed overview of how the British sought to make use of conferences and commissions to control and manage the pace of change. The author also demonstrates how commissions and conferences helped shape politics and African popular opinion in the early 1960s. Whilst giving the British government temporary respite, conferences and commissions ultimately accelerated the decolonisation process by transferring more power to African political parties and engendering softer perceptions on both sides. Presenting both British and African perspectives, this book offers an innovative exploration into the way that conferences and commissions played an important part in the decolonisation of Africa and shows that far from being dry and technical events, conferences and commissions were episodes of drama that tell us much about how the British government and those in Africa engaged with the last days of empire.weiterlesen