It discusses the establishment of European colonial rule throughout the continent, the emergence of nationalist movements, and their gradual triumph throughout much of the continent in the 1950s. Volume V: Independent Africa; Independent Africa covers the independence and postcolonial era in Africa, from the bloody and lengthy wars of liberation against Portuguese colonial rule and the breakaway white minority government of Rhodesia, through South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, which ended the long era of apartheid and led Nelson Mandela to the presidency.