In the twenty-first century, Africa has become an important source of US energy imports and the world's natural resources. It has also become the epicentre of the world's deadly health epidemic, HIV/AIDS, and one of the battlegrounds in the fight against terrorism. Africa is now a major player in global affairs.

A comprehensive study of Africa as a continent, the book explores the enormous range of diversities in terms of its colonial past, notions of perceiving state and nation, national liberation struggles, foreign policies, levels of economic and technological developments.

Drawing together insights from some of the world's leading scholars of African politics, this book provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students with the perfect introduction to the challenges faced by African states on an increasingly turbulent world stage.

African Cinema and Human Rights is an interdisciplinary look at the role of moving images in human rights struggles through the lens of African cinema.

This book outlines how African language media is affected by politics, technology, culture, and the economy and how this media is creatively produced and appropriated by audiences across cultures and contexts.

Ian Taylor explores contemporary African politics in all its diversity, revealing how state and society actually functions beyond the formal institutional facade. He examines why questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, misrule, and weak state structures are characteristic of so many Sub-Saharan states in particular.

The African Union has been a major factor in establishing peace, security and development in Africa.