CAMEROON, HISTORY OF

history of the area from prehistoric and ancient times to the present. Additional reading Mark W. DeLancey and H. Mbella Mokeba, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon, 2nd ed. (1990), also contains a chronology and an extensive bibliography. General histories include Engelbert Mveng, Histoire du Cameroun, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (198485), a classic work covering prehistory to independence but concentrating on precolonial and colonial history of French-speaking Cameroon; Tambi Eyongetah Mbuagbaw, Robert Brain, and Robin Palmer, A History of the Cameroon, 2nd ed. (1987), a brief, readable introduction emphasizing the colonial and postcolonial periods; Victor Julius Ngoh, Cameroon, 18841985 (1987), emphasizing French and British colonial rule and changes since independence; and Martin Njeuma (ed.), Introduction to the History of Cameroon: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1989), seven essays (five by Cameroonians) discussing selected topics including trade and politics just prior to colonial rule, aspects of colonial administration, and the northern lamidates. German rule in Cameroon is examined by Harry R. Rudin, Germans in the Cameroons, 18841914: A Case Study in Modern Imperialism (1938, reprinted 1968), the classic study, relying heavily on documents and official reports and presenting a report critical of but generally favourable to the Germans; and Helmuth Stoecker (ed.), Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, 2 vol. (196068), a revisionist view exposing a more exploitative and harsh relationship than in Rudin's work. The best accounts of political history up to the time of reunification are David E. Gardiner, Cameroon: United Nations Challenge to French Policy (1963); and Victor T. Le Vine, The Cameroons, from Mandate to Independence (1964, reprinted 1977), which analyzes the effects of French rule and the rise of independence movements, with some discussion of British rule. Richard A. Joseph, Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: Social Origins of the U.P.C. Rebellion (1977), a history of the most significant preindependence nationalist movement in Cameroon, provides an understanding of the origins of many of the domestic and international political and economic problems of Cameroon. Mark W. DeLancey, Cameroon: Dependence and Independence (1989), provides an analysis of the political, economic and cultural changes incurred in the colonial and independence eras. Mark W. DeLancey and Peter J. Schraeder (comps.), Cameroon (1986), is an annotated bibliography of recent publications on history, politics, and economics. Mark W. DeLancey The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica