Imagining the Congo

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction: Identity and International Relations in the “Heart of Darkness”

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 1-20

3. Inventing the Congo: Henry Morton Stanley, Leopold II, and the “Red Rubber” Scandal

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 21-59

4. Congo as Chaos, Lumumba as Diable: Independence and the 1960 Crisis

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 61-103

5. From Congo to Zaïre: Mobutu’s Production of an “Authentic” National Identity

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 105-138

6. Cancer, Kabila, and the Congo: Central Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 139-170

7. Taking Inventory

   • Kevin C. Dunn

   Pages 171-181

8. Back Matter

   Pages 183-221

   PDF

Understanding the current civil war in the Congo requires an examination of how the Congo's identity has been imagined over time. Imagining the Congo historicizes and contextualizes the constructions of the Congo's identity in order to analyze the political implications of that identity, looking in detail at four historical periods in which the identity of the Congo was contested, with numerous forces attempting to produce and attach meanings to its territory and people. Dunn looks specifically at how what he calls 'imaginings' of the Congo have allowed the current state of affairs there to develop, but he also looks at the broader conceptual question of how the concept of identity has developed and become important in recent international relations scholarship.

• Africa
• independence
• international relations
• national identity

'This is an important and engaging book. Kevin Dunn has combined a sophisticated discussion of the dominant representations of the 'Congo' with careful attention to wider 'international' trends as well as processes on the ground in Africa...I can find very little to disagree with in this book.' - Mark T. Berger, European Journal of Development

KEVIN DUNN is Assistant Professor, Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He is the co-editor of Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Palgrave 2001).

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