{"id":50634,"date":"2025-12-31T22:02:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=50634"},"modified":"2025-12-31T22:13:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:13:35","slug":"thomas-deltombe-manuel-domergue-and-jacob-tatsitsa-the-cameroon-war-a-history-of-french-neocolonialism-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=50634","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue and Jacob Tatsitsa, \u201eThe Cameroon War: A History of French Neocolonialism in Africa\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>A hidden history of anticolonial struggle in Africa uncovered<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>According to conventional wisdom, France\u2019s empire in sub-Saharan Africa ended peacefully. But this book tells a different story. The shocking violence of a secret war roiled Cameroon in the 1950s and \u201960s. A mass movement for self-determination had emerged under the leadership of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), and France responded with brutal repression. As in Algeria, French forces waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign. They eventually eradicated the opposition and installed a client dictatorship in the capital, Yaound\u00e9.<br><br>With the world focused on the Algerian bloodbath, the conflict in Cameroon received little attention at the time. Its devastating aftermath \u2014 and tens of thousands of victims \u2014 were intentionally obscured by French authorities and their local collaborators.<em>\u00a0The Cameroon War<\/em>\u00a0uncovers this hidden history. It illuminates a forgotten struggle for decolonisation at the origin of neocolonial rule in Francophone Africa, a story that is still unfolding today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201e<em>The Cameroon War<\/em> throws a spotlight on an episode of Franco-Cameroonian history that is still passed over in silence\u201c \u2013 Julien Le Gros,&nbsp; <em>Le Point<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201eA vital corrective to historical amnesia, The Cameroon War is replete with lessons for the present\u201c \u2013 Musab Younis, author of <em>On the Scale of the World<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201eA must-read for anyone interested in the history of national liberation in Africa\u201c \u2013 Kevin Ochieng Okoth, author of <em>Red Africa<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the authors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thomas Deltombe<\/strong>&nbsp;is an editor and journalist who writes widely for the French press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Manuel Domergue<\/strong>&nbsp;is Research Director at the Fondation Abb\u00e9 Pierre and a regular contributor to&nbsp;<em>Alternatives Economiques.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jacob Tatsitsa<\/strong>&nbsp;is a Cameroonian historian who has taught at the University of Yaound\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Translated by <strong>David Broder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>July 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/products\/742-the-cameroon-war\">https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/products\/742-the-cameroon-war<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/The-Cameroon-War.jpg?fit=296%2C445&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":53802,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=53802","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":0},"title":"&#8220;Disability and War in the Late Middle Ages: Becoming, Surviving, Managing&#8221;, eds. N. Dubourg, C. Masson","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"4. lipnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Issues relating to disability and war remain largely overlooked by military and disability historians. This exclusion is all the more striking since there was hardly a more likely place for receiving permanent injury than a battle, and we can barely imagine a worse place for disabled people than a battlefield.\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Disability-Medieval-ages.webp?fit=596%2C894&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Disability-Medieval-ages.webp?fit=596%2C894&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Disability-Medieval-ages.webp?fit=596%2C894&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52742,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52742","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":1},"title":"The Violent 1950s: Towards a New History of the Global \u201cPostwar\u201d Decade, Washington, DC, 25th\u201326th February 2027 (Deadline: 12th June 2026)","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"4. svibnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"This international conference aims to reassess the so-called postwar years. Reconceptualizing the 1950s as a deeply violent decade, marked not by the absence of conflict, but rather by its reconfiguration on all levels, the conference explores the manifold societal, political, and everyday manifestations of violence in the twilight phase of\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":53443,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=53443","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":2},"title":"The Routledge Handbook of the History and Sociology of Ideas","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"18. svibnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Edited by Stefanos Geroulanos and Gis\u00e8le Sapiro The Routledge Handbook of the History and Sociology of Ideas establishes a new and comprehensive way of working in the history and sociology of ideas, in order to obviate several longstanding gaps that have prevented a fruitful interdisciplinary and international dialogues. Pushing global\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Ideas.jpg?fit=350%2C498&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52688,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52688","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":3},"title":"Eleonora Naxidou and Yura Konstantinova \u201eBalkan Perspectives of Europe: Between East and West\u201c","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"28. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Through the lens of the Balkan nations, this volume makes a valuable and significant contribution to the fields of European and Southeast European studies by reconsidering the East\/West dichotomy \u2013 both in terms of the Orient\u2013Occident divide and the Eastern\u2013Western Europe binary. Balkan Perspectives of Europe focuses on concepts of\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Balkan-Perspectives-of-Europe-Between-East-and-West.jpg?fit=350%2C525&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52516,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52516","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":4},"title":"Marko Grde\u0161i\u0107, Mislav \u017ditko, \u201eSocialist Economics in Yugoslavia: A Critical History\u201c","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"17. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"This book presents a critical history of Yugoslav socialist economics, from its inception in the late 1940s to its dissolution in the late 1980s. After the dramatic break with the Soviet Union in 1948, Yugoslavia found itself in urgent need of a third way: A socialist trajectory which would not\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Zitko_Grdesic.jpg?fit=350%2C535&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52837,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52837","url_meta":{"origin":50634,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;European Culture(s) of Remembrance: Greece in Focus&#8221;, Thessaloniki (Solun), 3\u20139 October 2026","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"8. svibnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The call for participants for the fourth seminar of the \"European Culture(s) of Remembrance\" project is now open. The seminar will be held in Thessaloniki from 3 to 9 October 2026. The seminar will bring together 20 European multipliers in history teaching or historical civic education to explore Greek culture(s)\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/European-cultures-of-remembrance.jpg?fit=1200%2C848&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/European-cultures-of-remembrance.jpg?fit=1200%2C848&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/European-cultures-of-remembrance.jpg?fit=1200%2C848&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/European-cultures-of-remembrance.jpg?fit=1200%2C848&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/European-cultures-of-remembrance.jpg?fit=1200%2C848&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50640,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50634\/revisions\/50640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}