The Biafran War and postcolonial humanitarianism : spectacles of suffering / Lasse Heerten, Freie Universitat Berlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heerten, Lasse, author.

Series:

Human rights in history.

Human rights in history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food relief--Nigeria, Eastern--History.

Food relief.

Humanitarian assistance--Nigeria, Eastern--History.

Humanitarian assistance.

Postcolonialism--Nigeria--History.

Postcolonialism.

Nigeria--History--Civil War, 1967-1970--Civilian relief.

Nigeria.

Nigeria--History--Civil War, 1967-1970--Influence.

Nigeria, Eastern--History--20th century.

Nigeria, Eastern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 398 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

In the summer of 1968, audiences around the globe were shocked when newspapers and television stations confronted them with photographs of starving children in the secessionist Republic of Biafra. This global concern fundamentally changed how the Nigerian Civil War was perceived: an African civil war that had been fought for one year without fostering any substantial interest from international publics became 'Biafra' - the epitome of humanitarian crisis. Based on archival research from North America, Western Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, this book is the first comprehensive study of the global history of the conflict. A major addition to the flourishing history of human rights and humanitarianism, it argues that the global moment 'Biafra' is closely linked to the ascendance of human rights, humanitarianism, and Holocaust memory in a postcolonial world. The conflict was a key episode for the re-structuring of the relations between the West and the Third World.

Contents:

The emergences of Biafra

The end of empire and the coming of postcolonial conflict

The Biafran campaign for self-determination in a postcolonial world of states

The transnational internationalization of the Biafran campaign

Biafra on a global stage

Creating "Biafra": the discovery of a civil war as humanitarian crisis

"Biafran babies": humanitarian visions of postcolonial disaster

Auschwitz in Africa? Biafra, Holocaust memory, and the language of rights

Distant suffering and close concerns: Biafra and the Third World in the global sixties

The ends and afterlives of Biafra

Biafra, the internationalism of states and the question of genocide

The end of Biafra, the end of the lobby

The afterlives of Biafra.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 15 Sep 2017).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-50615-1

1-108-51360-3

1-108-51509-6

1-108-51658-0

1-108-52403-6

1-316-28224-4

1-108-51807-9