African history Books

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Book SynopsisThis completes Robin Law's highly acclaimed edition of the letter-books of the Royal African Company, the most substantial body of source material on English trade in West Africa in the late seventeenth century. The correspondence provides massively detailed day-to-day documentation of local operations and interactions.Trade ReviewRobin Law is to be commended for editing the Rawlinson collection in an important, scholarly, three-volume set. * Stephen D. Behrendt, African Affairs *

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Book SynopsisThis 1690s account describes in detail the relationship of the Portuguese with the peoples of East Central Africa, and tells of the rise of the Changamira dynasty in what is now Zimbabwe.Trade ReviewNewitt's English translation makes the work exponentially more accessible ... Few scholars are better placed that Malyn Newitt to discuss the Treatise's context and highlight its significance. * Jeanne Marie Penvenne, Journal of African History *

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Book SynopsisThis is an important collection of essays focusing on pre-colonial trade and African-European interaction, looking at western Africa between Senegal and Sierra Leone. It spans the whole pre-colonial period between the first Portuguese voyages of discovery and the transition to legitimate commerce in the 19th century.Trade ReviewOverall, the collection successfully engages with important themes concerning the creation and maintenance of intercontinental exchanges, and the development of Creole communities. It is possible to overdo concepts such as the Black Atlantic, suggesting a false unity through a perceived shared geography; this book wisely avoids that trap, by gathering particularistic, detailed studies with rich individual biographies, and giving them cohesion through the overarching theme of brokers. * Anne Haour, English Historical Review *Historians of coastal West African societies, of the slave trade, and of transnational interchange within the Atlantic commercial world will find solid evidence and interesting interpretations in these essays. It is clear that the contributors have read each other's work from the intelligent cross-referencing included ... well worth reading. * Kenneth Morgan, The Economic History Review *This is an important volume, bringing together junior and senior scholars who use new data to bring the debate on brokerage and its cultural and economic relevance into the pre-twentieth-century period...Scholars interested in African, Atlantic, and early modern history must read this significant volume. * Mariana Candido, Luso-Brazillian Review *Brokers of Change is a welcome addition to the under-represented field of pre-colonial Africa that presents Western Africa as a coherent space of insular and riverine connectivity. * Ghislaine Lydon, Early Modern History *Table of Contents1: AFRICAN-EUROPEAN RELATIONS; 2: THE ATLANTIC DIMENSION; 3: THE INSULAR ATLANTIC; 4: TRADE IN SLAVES AND COMMODITIES; 5: "POST-SLAVERY"

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Book SynopsisThis book addresses two of the most important questions in modern African history: the causes of rapid population growth, and the origins of the HIV pandemic. It examines three societies on the Uganda-Tanzania border whose distinctive histories shed new light on both of these phenomena. This was the region where HIV in Africa first became a mass rural epidemic, and also where HIV infection rates first began to decline significantly.Before HIV argues that only by analysing the long history of changes in sexual behaviour and attitudes can the shape of Africa''s regional epidemics be fully understood. It traces the emergence of the sexual culture which permitted HIV to spread so quickly during the late 1970s and 1980s back to the middle decades of the twentieth century, a period when new patterns of socialization and sexual networking became established. The case studies examined in this book also provide new insights into the relationship between economic and social development and trendTrade ReviewDoyle shows that it is only by analysing the history of changes in sexual behaviour and attitudes that the shape of Africa's regional HIV/AIDS epidemics can be fully understood. Doyle's book is an impressive attempt to tell a detailed story of changing sexual culture * Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, The Lancet *Without question Before HIV is an extremely erudite book full of rich empirical detail woven together with care to construct original and generally convincing challenges to some of the prevailing wisdom on demographic change and the differential epidemiology of HIV. * Marc Epprecht, American Historical Review *a wealth of testimony, gathered through years of painstaking archival and oral historical scholarship ... The result is a rich exploration of sexuality in three twentieth-century societies in the Lake Victoria region ... This is a hugely complex and detailed work. * Sarah Walters, Population Studies: A Journal of Demography *a well-researched, solidly documented study ... Highly recommended. * B.M. du Toit, CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Sexuality and fertility in the pre-colonial period ; 2. Disease and mortality, 1860-1925 ; 3. Early colonial sexuality and fertility ; 4. Marriage and sexuality in Buganda, 1925-69 ; 5. Prostitution in Buhaya, 1925-1969 ; 6. Ankole: marriage and the ethnicity of sex, 1925-69 ; 7. Fertility in Ankole, Buganda and Buhaya, 1925-6 ; 8. Disease and death, 1925-196 ; 9. Sexuality, mortality, disease and fertility in the 1970S ; Conclusion And Epilogue: AIDS and demographic change in historical context

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Book SynopsisThe Nuer people of South Sudan hold a special if unwanted place in imperial history as the object of Britain''s last ''pacification'' campaign in Africa. Territorial conquest was completed with the annexation of the independent sultanate of Darfur in 1916, but military pacification continued throughout the first thirty years of the twentieth century, culminating in ''the Nuer Settlement''.These campaigns are important for another reason: they were the cause of the Sudan government redirecting the anthropologist, E.E. Evans-Pritchard (against his will) to study of the Nuer, which he did in a succession of field visits between 1930 and 1936. The trilogy of monographs that he published were formative in the development of British social anthropology and are one of the main reasons why the Nuer are so well-known internationally today.This volume consists of twenty-five administrative reports, supplemented by transcripts of five interviews with Nuer and Dinka participants. Together these coTable of ContentsDOCUMENTS AND TEXTS

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Book SynopsisThis book rethinks the history of decolonisation and new nationhood in the Ghana-Togo borderlands, and speaks to an increasingly urgent debate on the production of knowledge about Africa. It does this through the close reading, translation and analysis of a unique primary source - a newspaper entitled Abl??e(meaning ''the Key to Freedom'').Abl??e was initiated and sustained by a shoemaker named Holiday V. K. Komedja, and written almost entirely in his mother-tongue, E?e. Whilst many studies of nationalism have highlighted the importance of anti-colonial newspapers, this volume is unique - in its intensive focus on a single African-language newspaper, in providing translations of entire issues, and in following the story of decolonisation into the era of new nationhood. The manner in which Komedja recounted and explained political events challenges existing scholarly accounts of the rise and fall of Togo''s first independent government, and of ethnic nationalisms and local loyalties witTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Glossary The Eve Alphabet Map PART 1: EDITORS' INTRODUCTION I: Preamble II: An overview: Holiday Vincent Kwasi Komedja and his newspaper III: The Aguawo: Asante invasion and the mission encounter IV: A historiographical intervention: Aguawo and approaches to empire VI: Coercion and coercion: the colonisation of Agu VI: Petitioning against plantations: the particularities of protest in Agu VII: The Togolese press: political history and regional print culture VIII: Journalist-activists: newsprint and politics in the borderlands IX: Writing the new nation: Ablɔɖe Safui and the work of citizenship X: Ablɔɖe Safui is my name! Komedja as patriot and truth-teller XI: Translating Ablɔɖe Safui: culture, communication and context XII: Conclusion PART 2: ABLƆƉE SAFUI (THE KEY TO FREEDOM): 22 ISSUES, EACH WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS A S6 of 31 March 1959 AS 20 of 6 October 1959 AS 21 of 27 October 1979 AS 22 of 26 November 1959 AS 23 of 26 February 1960 AS 24 of 23 March 1960 AS 25 of 13 April 1960 AS 26 of 2 May 1960 AS 27 of 20 May 1960 AS 28 of 13 July 1960 AS 29 of 11 November 1960 AS 30 of 31 December 1960 AS 31 of 28 January 1961 AS 32 of 20 February 1961 AS 34 of 20 April 1961 AS 36 not dated AS 37 not dated AS 38 of 5 May 1962 AS 39 of 11 July 1962 AS 40 of 2 August 1962 AS 49 of 2 May 1965 AS 56 of 28 December 1965 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book contains some of the richest written material in existence for precolonial West Africa with unique insights into daily life in an Afro-Atlantic coastal trade settlement. Presenting the complete translated and annotated text of the Inquisition trial of Crispina Peres, an African woman born in the Guinea-Bissau region, of a Portuguese father and an African mother, it documents the Portuguese Inquisition''s religious persecution of Africans on African soil. Set in a slave port in 17th century West Africa, the trial focuses on the worldview of an African woman accused of engaging in African rites and witchcraft, who is imprisoned and brought before Inquisitioners in Lisbon. It highlights her resourcefulness, resilience and spirited defence of her innocence, providing precious details on her life, household, work, health and social and commercial networks in this understudied African region.Table of ContentsMaps Maps Glossary Introduction Translation Index

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Book SynopsisGomes's Viagem..., written in 1648, presents in rare detail the relations of the Portuguese creole community with the African population of south-central Africa.Trade ReviewAs I read it, I could not stop imagining myself using Gomes's text to discuss with my students the strengths and weaknesses of the written document as a historical source, and what, even in the same document, might count as primary and secondary source. In this way, both the independent researcher and the guided student of pre-colonial African history will benefit from this book. * Festo Mkenda SJ, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Glossary List of maps List of Illustrations Introduction Portuguese text of the Viagem... English Translation of the Viagem...

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Book SynopsisSudan''s Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 ended over two decades of civil war and led to South Sudan''s independence. Peacemaking that brought about the agreement and then sought to sustain it involved, alongside the Sudanese, an array of regional and western states as well as international organisations. This was a landmark effort to create and sustain peace in a war-torn region. Yet in the years that followed, multiple conflicts continued or reignited, both in Sudan and in South Sudan. Peacemaking attempts multiplied. Authored by both practitioners and scholars, this volume grapples with the question of which, and whose, ideas of peace and of peacemaking were pursued in the Sudans and how they fared. Bringing together economic, legal, anthropological and political science perspectives on over a decade of peacemaking attempts in the two countries, it provides insights for peacemaking efforts to come, in the Sudans and elsewhere.Trade ReviewThe book is essential reading for dedicated scholars of the two countries and long-serving practitioners working in the area of peacemaking. * Jamie Pring, Sudan Studies *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables Note on Contributors Preface 1: SHARATH SRINIVASAN AND SARAH M. H. NOUWEN: Introduction: Peace and Peacemaking in Sudan and South Sudan 2: NASREDEEN ABDULBARI: The Interlinkage between Understandings of Self-Determination and Understandings of Peace 3: WENDY JAMES: Making Peace on Paper Only: A View from the Blue Nile 4: DOUGLAS H. JOHNSON: Abyei, the CPA, and the War in Sudan's New South 5: PETER DIXON: Strategic Peacebuilding and the Sudanese Peace Process 6: BENEDETTA DE ALESSI: Peacemaking, the SPLM/A's Political Transition During the CPA Era and Conflict in the Sudans 7: EDWARD THOMAS: Fiscal Policy and Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement 8: LAURA M. JAMES: Economic Provisions of the CPA: Selective Implementation and Long-Term Consequences 9: NADA MUSTAFA ALI: Gender and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration in Post-Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) South Sudan 10: DANIEL LARGE: China and the CPA: Developing Peace in Sudan? 11: BRENDAN BROMWICH: Natural Resources, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Darfur: The Challenge to Detraumatise Social and Environmental Change 12: PARTHA MOMAN: A Flawed Formula for Peacemaking and Continued Violence in Darfur: The Abuja Negotiations, 2004-2006 13: ROSALIND MARSDEN: Peacemaking in Darfur and the Doha Process: The Role of International Actors 14: SOPHIA DAWKINS: Why Negotiate? Why Mediate? The Purpose of South Sudanese Peacemaking 15: ALY VERJEE: How Mediators Conceive of Peace: The Case of IGAD in South Sudan, 2013-15 16: MAREIKE SCHOMERUS AND ANOUK S. RIGTERINK: South Sudan's long crisis of justice: Merging notions of lack of socio-economic justice and criminal accountability 17: ALEX DE WAAL: Concluding Reflections: Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement: Theories of Change Index

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Book SynopsisThe Corpus enables in-depth study of the coherence of and variation within the Sunjata epic oral tradition. It presents a rich evocation of this still-living performance tradition during almost the entirety of the Western Sudan's turbulent period of European colonial control, from the late 1880s to 1959.Table of ContentsList of maps & figures Acknowledgements Note on translations Foreword: A Platform for Re-Examining History and Praise, the Public and the Personal, in the Sunjata CorpusPaulo Fernando de Moraes Farias: Maps Introduction: Towards a history of the Sunjata epic 1: Emile Hourst: The legend of Somangoro and Sundiata from Kulikoro 2: Jean-Gilbert Jaime: The legend of Sumanguru from Kulikoro 3: Fernand Quiquandon: 'The history of Manding power according to legend and tradition' - Sunjata's epic from the griots of Kenedugu fàama Tieba Traore, ruler of Sikasso 4: Charles Monteil: Two Khasonka versions of the legend of 'Simanguru and Sun-Jata' 5: The history of Sundiata from a Kita chronicle 6: Mamadou Diakite: Genealogy of the Keïta - an Umarian account of Sunjata 7: Mamadou Diakite: Historical legends of the Nioro region 8: Bathily: An oral performance of the Sunjata epic from Nioro's Western Sudanese chronicle 9: Mamadi Aïssa Kaba Diakite: The history of the war between the empires of Sosso and Mande 10: Kande Kanote: The legend of Sundiata 11: Habibou Sissoko: Additional material on the legend of Sundiata 12: Kieba Koate 'Korongo': The Sunjatta legend of the Malinke people 13: Jules Vidal: The 'official' legend of Sundiata, founder of the Mali empire 14: Bakary Diabate: Sundiata - Abdoulaye Sadji's hero for the Negritude movement 15: Mamby Sidibé: Sundiata Keita, historical and legendary hero, emperor of the Manding 16: Théatre dahoméen: The Tricks of Jegue 17: Maximilien Quénum: The legend of Fama-Sundiata 18: René Guillot: The Magic Arrow 19: Paul Humblot: Episodes from the legend of Sondiata 20: Ali Sawse: A Wolof version of Sunjata Glossary Table of episodes Index of common names Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWhen Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom.Trade Review"This is an important book on an important topic. In The Pan-African Nation, Andrew Apter exposes FESTAC '77 as a foundational cultural moment. Here, FESTAC becomes both a way of thinking about nation-building and also a way of linking specific cultural forms to the political economy of oil. This is a provocative interrogation of the question of culture and its relation to the nation." - Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley"

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Book SynopsisAIDS and Africa are indelibly linked in popular consciousness, but despite widespread awareness of the epidemic, much of the story remains hidden beneath a superficial focus on condoms, sex workers, and antiretrovirals. Africa gets lost in this equation. The author offers a powerful reversal, using AIDS as a lens through which to view Africa.Trade Review"Drawing on more than twenty years of fieldwork, Smith effectively uses popular reactions to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria as a lens through which to observe and analyze social change there. He successfully shows that things are not as simple as they might seem to outsiders-even the best-intentioned outsiders-and that much of the public health messaging that emphasizes individual responsibility is simply off the mark." (Adam Ashforth, University of Michigan)"

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Book SynopsisProvides a counterhistory of the academic study of religion, an alternative to standard accounts that have failed to link the field of comparative religion with either the power relations or the historical contingencies of the imperial project.Trade Review"Elegantly pairing key themes and authors in each section, Chidester's lucid and powerful book will be of central importance to specialists in African religions and history and the larger genealogy of religion as a modern category." (Hugh B. Urban, Ohio State University)"

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Book SynopsisHow is knowledge about religion and religions produced, and how is that knowledge authenticated and circulated? The author aims to answer these questions. He shows that race, rather than theology, was formative in the emerging study of religion in Europe and North America.Trade Review"Elegantly pairing key themes and authors in each section, Chidester's lucid and powerful book will be of central importance to specialists in African religions and history and the larger genealogy of religion as a modern category." (Hugh B. Urban, Ohio State University)"

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Book SynopsisAn introduction to the people who lived along the Nile for almost 35 centuries, this collection of essays presents studies of ancient Egyptians arranged by social type - slaves, craftsmen, priests, bureaucrats, pharaohs, peasants and women - representing Egyptian culture, state and society.

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Book SynopsisIntends to seek answers to the following questions: What is the nature of the traditional culture of the dominant ethnic group, the Amhara, and what are its enduring values? What aspects of modern culture interest this society and by what means has it sought to institutionalize them?Trade Review"A superb book." (New Yorker) "Ethiopia's abiding problem is the symbiosis of her autochthonous civilization with the demands of an uncompromising modern world.... Nobody has yet described the dilemma, its origin, its magnitude and possible ways of resolving it with greater ability and understanding." (Times Literary Supplement)"

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Book SynopsisIn 1965 the white minority government of Rhodesia issued a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain, rather than negotiate a transition to majority rule. The author shows that the exception that was Rhodesian independence did not, in fact, make the state that different from new nations elsewhere in Africa.Trade Review"Unpopular Sovereignty is an insightful and important book, one that sheds a great deal of light on the complexities of sovereignty, self-determination, and citizenship; on the possibilities and limitations of electoral politics; and on the relationship of territorial politics to global norms." (Frederick Cooper, author of Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-1960)

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Book SynopsisWest African history is inseparable from the history of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. According to historical archaeologist François Richard, however, the dominance of this narrative not only colors the range of political discourse about Africa but also occludes many lesser-knownbut equally importantexperiences of those living in the region. Reluctant Landscapes is an exploration of the making and remaking of political experience and physical landscapes among rural communities in the Siin province of Senegal between the late 1500s and the onset of World War II. By recovering the histories of farmers and commoners who made up African states' demographic core in this period, Richard shows their crucialbut often overlookedrole in the making of Siin history. The book also delves into the fraught relation between the Seereer, a minority ethnic and religious group, and the Senegalese nation-state, with Siin's perceived primitive conservatism standing at odds with the country's

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Book SynopsisWest African history is inseparable from the history of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. According to historical archaeologist François Richard, however, the dominance of this narrative not only colors the range of political discourse about Africa but also occludes many lesser-knownbut equally importantexperiences of those living in the region. Reluctant Landscapes is an exploration of the making and remaking of political experience and physical landscapes among rural communities in the Siin province of Senegal between the late 1500s and the onset of World War II. By recovering the histories of farmers and commoners who made up African states' demographic core in this period, Richard shows their crucialbut often overlookedrole in the making of Siin history. The book also delves into the fraught relation between the Seereer, a minority ethnic and religious group, and the Senegalese nation-state, with Siin's perceived primitive conservatism standing at odds with the country's

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Book SynopsisIn the mid 1800s, a group of High Anglicans formed the Universities Mission to Central Africa, bringing education, medical care and the Church to rural Africans. This work traces the mission's history and its lasting impact on public health care in South Central Africa.

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Book SynopsisIn March 2009, in a small town in Malawi, a nurse at the local hospital was accused of teaching witchcraft to children. Amid swirling rumors, Mrs. K. tried to defend her reputation, but the community nevertheless grew increasingly hostile. The legal, social, and psychological trials that she endured in the struggle to clear her name left her life in shambles, and she died a few years later. In The Trials of Mrs. K., Adam Ashforth studies this and similar stories of witchcraft that continue to circulate in Malawi. At the heart of the book is Ashforth's desire to understand how claims to truth, the pursuit of justice, and demands for security work in contemporary Africa, where stories of witchcraft can be terrifying. Guiding us through the history of legal customs and their interactions with the court of public opinion, Ashforth asks challenging questions about responsibility, occult forces, and the imperfect but vital mechanisms of law. A beautifully written and provocative book, Th

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Book SynopsisIn mid-1990s South Africa, apartheid ended, Nelson Mandela was elected president, and the country's urban black youth developed kwaitoa form of electronic music (redolent of North American house) that came to represent the post-struggle generation. In this book, Gavin Steingo examines kwaito as it has developed alongside the democratization of South Africa over the past two decades. Tracking the fall of South African hope into the disenchantment that often characterizes the outlook of its youth todaywho face high unemployment, extreme inequality, and widespread crimeSteingo looks to kwaito as a powerful tool that paradoxically engages South Africa's crucial social and political problems by, in fact, seeming to ignore them. Politicians and cultural critics have long criticized kwaito for failing to provide any meaningful contribution to a society that desperately needs direction. As Steingo shows, however, these criticisms are built on problematic assumptions about the political fun

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Book SynopsisDuring the worst years of apartheid, the most popular show on television in South Africa - among both blacks and whites - was The Cosby Show. Combining South Africa's political history and a social history of television, this title challenges conventional understandings of globalization.Trade Review"This is a wonderfully fluid, fluent, and extraordinarily well-written analysis. Krabill has immersed himself in his story and he provides a theoretically refreshing way of telling it. He senses the contextual experiential nuance and the local-global texture of events as they unfolded, and by locating his narrative within the analytical nexus between Mandela and Cosby, the United States and South Africa, he appeals to readers across disciplines." - Keyan Tomaselli, University of KwaZulu-Natal"

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Book SynopsisDuring the worst years of apartheid, the most popular show on television in South Africa - among both blacks and whites - was "The Cosby Show". Combining South Africa's political history and a social history of television, this title challenges conventional understandings of globalization.Trade Review"This is a wonderfully fluid, fluent, and extraordinarily well-written analysis. Krabill has immersed himself in his story and he provides a theoretically refreshing way of telling it. He senses the contextual experiential nuance and the local-global texture of events as they unfolded, and by locating his narrative within the analytical nexus between Mandela and Cosby, the United States and South Africa, he appeals to readers across disciplines." - Keyan Tomaselli, University of KwaZulu-Natal"

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Book SynopsisThat Africaone of the superpowers' crucial diplomatic and economic battlegroundsnow verges on political developments as dramatic as those of eastern Europe compels us to consider the tremendous influence that East and West have wielded in recent African political development. Drawing from American diplomatic archives, firsthand interviews, and the African and international press, Zaki Laidïpresents a historical analysis of how the dialectical relationships of the United States, Soviet Union, and African actors evolved to their present state. The lapse of European influence in the 1960s left a diplomatic void, which the superpowers rushed to fill. Just as Dien Bien Phû and the Suez crisis thrust Asia and the Near East, respectively, into the diplomatic spotlight, so the Angolan crisis lent a multifaceted cast to Africa's international relations. The ebb and flow of African crises is now linked to the rhythm of superpower relations, but Laidï is quick to warn that Africa's internal polit

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Book SynopsisThis work combines history, anthropology and sociology to answer two questions: why did Ethiopia remain independent under European expansionism while other African political entities were colonized?; and why must Ethiopia be considered a single cultural region despite its diversity?

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Book SynopsisHow are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the postCold War erachanges in which they are themselves deeply implicated. This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guisesfrom university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmersbut, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that traditional authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa's history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making proc

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Book SynopsisHow are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the postCold War erachanges in which they are themselves deeply implicated. This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guisesfrom university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmersbut, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that traditional authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa's history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making proc

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Book SynopsisFor far too long, the Western world viewed Africa as unmappable terraina repository for outsiders' wildest imaginings. This problematic notion has had lingering effects not only on popular impressions of the region but also on the development of the academic study of Africa. Critical Terms for the Study of Africa considers the legacies that have shaped our understanding of the continent and its place within the conceptual grammar of contemporary world affairs. Written by a distinguished group of scholars, the essays compiled in this volume take stock of African studies today and look toward a future beyond its fraught intellectual and political past. Each essay discusses one of our most critical terms for talking about Africa, exploring the trajectory of its development while pushing its boundaries. Editors Gaurav Desai and Adeline Masquelier balance the choice of twenty-five terms between the expected and the unexpected, calling for nothing short of a new mapping of the scholarly

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Book SynopsisSince the end of the cold war, Africa has seen a rise in political and religious phenomena, including an eviscerated privatized state, neoliberal NGOs, Pentecostalism, a resurgence in accusations of witchcraft, and a culture of scamming and fraud. This title argues that a novel cultural politics is remaking one of the world's poorest regions.Trade Review"Nostalgia for the Future is an evocative and topical study that is clearly the product of a mature, long-term engagement with contemporary Togo, the anthropological and historical literature on the country, and the theoretical debates that have been central to anthropology over the past fifteen years." - Mariane C. Ferme, University of California, Berkeley"

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Book SynopsisSince the end of the cold war, Africa has seen a rise in political and religious phenomena, including an eviscerated privatized state, neoliberal NGOs, Pentecostalism, a resurgence in accusations of witchcraft, and a culture of scamming and fraud. This title argues that a novel cultural politics is remaking one of the world's poorest regions.Trade Review"Nostalgia for the Future is an evocative and topical study that is clearly the product of a mature, long-term engagement with contemporary Togo, the anthropological and historical literature on the country, and the theoretical debates that have been central to anthropology over the past fifteen years." - Mariane C. Ferme, University of California, Berkeley"

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Book SynopsisThe aftermath of Algeria's revolutionary war for independence coincided with the sexual revolution in France, and in this book Todd Shepard argues that these two movements are inextricably linked.?Sex, France, and Arab Men is a history of how and whyfrom the upheavals of French Algeria in 1962 through the 1970shighly sexualized claims about Arabs were omnipresent in important public French discussions, both those that dealt with sex and those that spoke of Arabs. Shepard explores how the so-called sexual revolution took shape in a France profoundly influenced by the ongoing effects of the Algerian revolution. Shepard's analysis of both events alongside one another provides a frame that renders visible the ways that the fight for sexual liberation, usually explained as an American and European invention, developed out of the worldwide anticolonial movement of the mid-twentieth century.Trade Review“A timely history of violence, fear, and prejudice in France since 1962. The figure of the North African Arab, as Todd Shepard deftly shows, is still present in French culture, although what was arguably at first a conflict of nationalisms is nowadays articulated as a fight against terrorism and Muslim extremism. A complex and thorough picture emerges.” * Times Literary Supplement *“Shepard’s study, with its emphasis on daring ideas about sex and revolution half a century ago, is rich with implications for the present.” * London Review of Books *“Shepard’s book is an achievement. His methodological insistence on holding decolonization and the Sexual Revolution together within the same frame of analysis yields new and substantial insights in both of these fields. Shepard is utterly convincing: we cannot understand how the global patterns of the Sexual Revolution impacted France without understanding France’s post-decolonization context. The breadth and depth of Shepard’s archival work, too, is striking. Numerous films, plays, television documentaries, works of scholarship and theory, major and minor right-wing journals, Maghrebi writers, underground magazines and posters, police files: the reader has the dizzying impression that Shepard has located and perceptively analyzed every relevant instance of ‘sex talk’ in these years.” * Politics, Religion & Ideology *“Original and provocative in the best sense. This well-written book is often creative in combining two major themes of the long sixties: multiculturalism and the sexual revolution.” * Journal of the History of Sexuality *“By putting Maghrebi-French men and women at the center of the story, the book casts new light on the 1962–79 period, which has been relatively under-appreciated by scholars of postcolonial France… The book also makes an original contribution to the historiography of the sexual revolution in France, and to the study of sex, gender, and sexuality more broadly.” * International Journal of Middle East Studies *“Shepard’s Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962–1979 is particularly exciting because it challenges long-standing assumptions about the relationship between colony and metropole but also about the history of sexuality in France. As Shepard argues, the so-called French sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was intimately tied to the war in Algeria, to decolonization, and to immigration. Shepard’s thorough commitment to critique shines through in his systematic questioning and denaturalization of long-standing assumptions in the fields of postcolonial criticism, French history, queer theory, and sexuality studies. This book’s theoretical ambitions, its interdisciplinary focus, and its elegance will make this a must-read in all of these fields.” * Camille Robcis, Cornell University *“Shepard’s book offers a radical and radically new account of the intimately entwined histories of the Algerian and Sexual Revolutions in France. Historians frequently view the two decades following the ‘war without a name’ as a period in which French memory of the brutal conflict was occulted, if not completely forgotten. In this deeply researched and convincingly argued book, Shepard shows instead that figures associated with the war, and especially the ‘Arab man’ as both social fact and rhetorical trope, were culturally and politically omnipresent—in literature, journalism, and film, as well as governmental, police, and academic discourse and policy. Indeed, by combining insights of feminist, queer, critical race, and post-colonial theory, this work does not simply offer a new understanding of these pivotal two decades in French and global history. It just as importantly provides critical historical insight into the moment out which so much of that theory emerged.” * Judith Surkis, Rutgers University *"This book is especially recommended for those interested in media criticism of the debates on immigration in Europe and the USA." * Sexuologie (translated from German) *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION / Sex Talk and the Post-Algerian History of France ONE / The Far Right and the Reinvigoration of Sexual Orientalism in Post-Decolonization France TWO / May ’68, “Arab Perversion,” and Anti-Arab Racism THREE / The Algerian Revolution and Arab Men in the Fight for Sexual Revolution FOUR / Homosociality, “Human Contact,” and the Specter of the Arab Man in the Post-’68 French Gay World FIVE / Prostitution and the Arab Man, 1945–1975: Algerian Pimps and the “Takeover” of the “Whores of France” SIX / Prostitution and the Arab Man, 1962–1979: Prostitutes, Arab Clients, and “the Traffic in White Women” SEVEN / Power, Resistance, and Sodomy in Post-Algerian France EIGHT / Rape as Metaphor in the 1970s NINE / Rape as Act in the 1970s CONCLUSION / The Erotics of Algerian Difference, 1979/2016 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExamines literary and historical texts to show how writers have manipulated images and ideas associated with the cattle killing - harvest, sacrifice, rebirth, devastation - to speak to their contemporary predicaments.Trade Review"Taking the Xhosa cattle killing as her focus, Wenzel offers something beautifully paradoxical: a new, anticanonical canon of South African writing. Concerned with historical and literary 'failures,' this work is a profound reflection on the fragmentary and spectral (but not therefore any less compelling) nature of echoes, influences, and prophecies. A work of sophistication and intellectual ambition, Bulletproof is a timely and innovative intervention in postcolonial studies." - Rita Barnard, University of Pennsylvania"

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Book SynopsisIn late 2017 and early 2018, South Africa and Zimbabwe both saw the unexpected fall of their sitting presidents, Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe. New Leaders, New Dawns? explores these political transitions and the way they were received, revealing that despite what the new leaders may have promised, a “new dawn” has not yet arrived in southern Africa.Trade Review“This edited volume provides a rich and authoritative account of the transitions in South Africa and Zimbabwe, presenting a critical and timely analysis of the political landscape of both countries. Each chapter skilfully captures the nuances and complexities of reform in each country, while situating these challenges in broader regional and international contexts of political transitions around the world.” International Affairs

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Book SynopsisIn late 2017 and early 2018, South Africa and Zimbabwe both saw the unexpected fall of their sitting presidents, Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe. New Leaders, New Dawns? explores these political transitions and the way they were received, revealing that despite what the new leaders may have promised, a “new dawn” has not yet arrived in southern Africa.Trade Review“This edited volume provides a rich and authoritative account of the transitions in South Africa and Zimbabwe, presenting a critical and timely analysis of the political landscape of both countries. Each chapter skilfully captures the nuances and complexities of reform in each country, while situating these challenges in broader regional and international contexts of political transitions around the world.” International Affairs

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisSurveys the relationships of workers and trade unions to the state in Egypt, bringing to light the often overlooked effect of workers' collective actions in shaping public policy.

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