The Geopolitical Origins of the Central African Federation: Britain, Rhodesia and South Africa, 1948–1953

Abstract

The Central African Federation (1953–63) was the most controversial large-scale imperial exercise in constructive state-building ever undertaken by the British government. It appears now as a quite extraordinary mistake, an aberration of history (‘like the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem’), a deviation from the inevitable historical trend of decolonization. Paradoxically, one of its principal architects, Andrew Cohen (head of the African department of the colonial office) is also credited with having set the course for planned African decolonization as a whole. There have already been several attempts to explain how an error so interesting and surprising, so large and portentous, came to be made. No one, however, has yet presented an analysis based on British government archives, and the authoritative evidence that they alone can provide.

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