René LEMARCHAND

Biographie : " René Lemarchand joined the faculty of Political Science at the University of Florida (UF) in 1962 as a young man , and soon became the University’s first director of its Center for African Studies. Born in France in 1932, he received his PhD from UCLA. / He is known for his research on Africa’s Great Lakes region, notably Burundi’s 1972 genocide and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. As professor emeritus, he has continued to write, teach and consult internationally, including regarding Darfur, Abidjan, and Ghana. / His 12 books include Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo (California, 1964); Rwanda and Burundi (Praeger, 1970), which received the coveted Herskovits Book Prize; and Remembering Genocides in Central Africa. (Routledge, 2021). / With intellectual detours to southern Africa, Libya, and the Sahel, as well as comparative work embracing Cambodia and Bosnia, Lemarchand published about Burundi and Rwanda long before their genocidal turns, on matters of kingship, clientelism, and violence. In his many articles and books – in English and French – he has written about the concept of clientelism ; mass violence, witnessing, and memory politics; myth-making and ethnicity ; political instability, traditional systems, armies and nation-building ; and State collapse, transition anarchies, and ethnic re-stratifications." (Un. of Florida, 09.2021)
Nationalité : France