News & Events

After almost fifty years of Dutch-Zambian relationships, the Netherlands Embassy in Lusaka closed its doors in 2013. Earlier, the development cooperation with this country was ended. A lively Dutch community of entrepreneurs and (former) development workers stay behind. How do they and also Zambians look back on the Dutch involvement? Did the Dutch presence mean anything substantial from the perspectives of those involved? This ASC publication by historian Anne-Lot Hoek gives a unique insight in the history of Dutch presence in Zambia.

At least once a year an ASC Library staff member heads for Africa to collect books that are otherwise hard to come by. The motivation behind these trips is partly an awareness that collection practices are inherently biased. To illustrate this, two books bought on a recent ASC visit to Kampala are the focus of our latest ‘Acquisition Highlight’, one book arguing that Tony Blair became "the face of African dictators whom he networked and advised as they plundered and looted their nations and killed their people",  and the other praising Idi Amin for his "positive contributions" to Uganda. Read the Acquisition Highlight.

To coincide with the general elections in South Africa on 7 May, the ASC Library has compiled a new web dossier, containing titles on (the current and former) elections in South Africa from the library's online catalogue published since 1993. It includes monographs, articles and chapters from edited works, a selection of links to relevant web sites and an introduction to South African elections since the end of apartheid. Read the web dossier!