The Barrel of a Gun

Ruth First's classic study of coups d'état in post-colonial Africa with a groundbreaking critical introduction for a new generation.

A classic study of the role coups d’état played in postcolonial Africa, Ruth First’s The Barrel of a Gun is being republished for the first time in 50 years with a critical introduction from Christopher J. Lee. If Frantz Fanon had not died in 1961, what might a sequel to The Wretched of the Earth have looked like? Ruth First’s The Barrel of a Gun provides a possible answer by addressing one of the most notorious and complicated phenomena in postcolonial Africa—the coup d’état. Written at a time when the fervor of decolonization and independence was receding, and the vulnerabilities and violent realities of postcolonial state power were being confronted, The Barrel of a Gun remains a foundational work on the topic of postcolonial coups and state power.Ruth First was an internationally known anti-apartheid activist who was a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC). In 1982, she was assassinated in Maputo, Mozambique, by a mail bomb sent by the apartheid government.

Christopher J. Lee is Professor of African History and Literature at The Africa Institute, UAE. He is the author of Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives and Frantz Fanon: Toward a Revolutionary Humanism.