The Journal of Modern African Studies deeply regrets to announce
the death of the Book Reviews Editor, Dr John Wiseman, on
5 March 2000.John Wiseman, Senior Lecturer in African Politics at the University of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, died of cancer on 5 March 2000, at the
tragically early age of 54. John was always proud to have been a
product of the Department of Government at Manchester, where he
took both his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D. with Bill Tordoff
and Dennis Austin between 1968 and 1974, completing his Ph.D.
under Bill's supervision on ‘The Organisation of Political Conflict in
Botswana’. He then taught for three years at Ahmadu Bello University,
before taking up what proved to be his lifetime post at Newcastle in
1977.Sceptical of theory, and moved by a deep love of Africa, John always
saw African politics as deriving from the needs, aspirations and
struggles of individual Africans, rather than from grand global
narratives. This was an approach that encouraged the empathetic and
fieldwork-based study of individual African states, first in Botswana,
but also in his second African home, The Gambia, while at the time of
his death he was working on Malawi. It also led to an interest in
leadership, expressed in his Political Leaders in Black Africa (1991), and
to an abiding conviction that Africans were every bit as capable as
anyone else in the world, given half a chance, of managing effective
multi-party democracies. This conviction was expressed in his two
major books, Democracy in Black Africa: Survival and Revival (1990), and
The New Struggle for Democracy in Africa (1996), as well as an edited
volume, Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (1995).
Fittingly, the last publication before his death was ‘The Continuing
Case for Demo-Optimism in Africa’, Democratization (1999).A lifetime enthusiast, John made an enormous contribution to the
study of Africa, as teacher, colleague and friend. His final-year
undergraduate course on African politics at Newcastle regularly
attracted more than seventy students a year. He was an active
member of ASAUK, especially in organising conference panels and
serving on its Executive Committee, and was Book Review Editor first
of The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and from 1997 of
The Journal of Modern African Studies. He will be deeply missed, both
amongst the Africanist community in the United Kingdom, and in those
parts of the continent that he knew and loved. A memorial fund has
been established, and will be donated to projects in those parts of Africa
with which John was most closely associated. Cheques should be made
payable to the ‘University of Newcastle’, and sent to Mrs Joan
Davison, Department of Politics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU.Pending the appointment of a new Book Reviews Editor, all
reviews and correspondence should be sent to the Editor,
Christopher Clapham, at the University of Lancaster.
