The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa: Fighting Their Way Home
Erik Kennes
Erik Kennes and Miles Larmer provide a history of the Katangese gendarmes and their largely undocumented role in many of the most important political and military conflicts in Central Africa. Katanga, located in today's Democratic Republic of Congo, seceded in 1960 as Congo achieved independence and the gendarmes fought as the unrecognized state's army during the Congo crisis. Kennes and Larmer explain how the ex-gendarmes, then exiled in Angola, struggled to maintain their national identity and return "home." They take readers through the complex history of the Katangese and their engagement in regional conflicts and Africa's Cold War. Kennes and Larmer show how the paths not taken at Africa's independence persist in contemporary political and military movements and bring new understandings to the challenges that personal and collective identities pose to the relationship between African nation-states and their citizens and subjects.
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About Erik Kennes
Reviews for The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa: Fighting Their Way Home
American Historical Review
Erik Kennes and Miles Larmer have written an important and extraordinarily well-researched book.
Journal of Modern African Studies
The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa deserves a wide reading among scholars of nationalism and decolonization in post-colonial Africa.
African Studies Review
The Katangese Gendarmes is a welcome, timely and necessary addition to the body of studies dedicated to war and conflict in Central Africa and an exemplary effort in historical conflict studies underpinned by a rigorous conceptual background on statehood, nationalism and conflict in postcolonial Africa. . . . Kennes and Larmer's book offers unparalleled testimony of key stakeholders in the entire region's recent political history. For anyone interested in such issues, and students of Angola and the Congo in particular, this book should have a prominent place in libraries and on syllabi and bookshelves.
Africa