African history Books

Book SynopsisDocuments Jewish life in the Middle East and North Africa over two hundred years. This book explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its 'golden age' and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Trade ReviewThis is a very essential and long-awaited work about an important ancient part of the Jewish world little-known by many. A superbly organized book. -- William M. Brinner This timely volume addresses an important topic that has recently risen to the fore amidst general ignorance: the lives of the Jews of Muslim lands during the last 200 years... This is a book that should be a part of everyone's personal library. Sephardim Today Perhaps no single volume encompasses the history of Jews in the Muslim world with quite the comprehensive sweep and topical richness as The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times. -- Michael Skakun The Jewish Press Well researched and clearly written, the book is a major contribution to the field, and appropriate for academic, public and center libraries as well as for individuals. Jewish Book WorldTable of ContentsPart I: Thematic Section Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jewry: The Historical Background 700-1700, by Jane Gerber Europe in the Middle East, by Reeva S. Simon Economic Life, by Michael M. Laskier and Reeva S. Simon Community Leadership and Structure, by Michael M. Laskier, Sara Reguer and Haim Saadoun Religion: Rabbinic Tradition and the Response to Modernity, by Zvi Zohar Intellectual Life, by Ammiel Alcalay Languages Judezmo and Hakitia (Judeo-Spanish), by David M. Bunis Judeo-Arabic, by Joseph Chetrit Languages of Iran and Afghanistan, by Haideh Sahim Education, by Rachel Simon Zionism, by Rachel Simon Beliefs and Customs, by Issachar Ben-Ami Aspects of Material Culture, by Esther Juhasz Music, by Mark Kligman The World of Women, by Sara Reguer Part II: Country by Country Survey Ottoman Turkey, by Jacob M. Landau Ottoman Balkans, by Aron Rodrigue The Turkish Republic, by George E. Gruen Syria and Lebanon, by Michael M. Laskier Eretz Yisrael / Palestine 1800-1948, by Ruth Kark and Joseph B. Glass Iraq, by Reeva S. Simon Iran and Afghanistan, by Haideh Sahim Yemen, by Bat-Zion Eraqi-Klorman Egypt and the Sudan, by Jean-Marc Ran Oppenheim Libya, by Harvey E. Goldberg Tunisia, by Haim Saadoun Algeria, by David Cohen Morocco, by Michael M. Laskier and Eliezer Bashan

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Book SynopsisDocuments Jewish life in the Middle East and North Africa over two hundred years. This book explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its 'golden age' and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Trade ReviewThis is a very essential and long-awaited work about an important ancient part of the Jewish world little-known by many. A superbly organized book. -- William M. Brinner This timely volume addresses an important topic that has recently risen to the fore amidst general ignorance: the lives of the Jews of Muslim lands during the last 200 years... This is a book that should be a part of everyone's personal library. Sephardim Today Perhaps no single volume encompasses the history of Jews in the Muslim world with quite the comprehensive sweep and topical richness as The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times. -- Michael Skakun The Jewish Press Well researched and clearly written, the book is a major contribution to the field, and appropriate for academic, public and center libraries as well as for individuals. Jewish Book WorldTable of ContentsPart I: Thematic Section Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jewry: The Historical Background 700-1700, by Jane Gerber Europe in the Middle East, by Reeva S. Simon Economic Life, by Michael M. Laskier and Reeva S. Simon Community Leadership and Structure, by Michael M. Laskier, Sara Reguer and Haim Saadoun Religion: Rabbinic Tradition and the Response to Modernity, by Zvi Zohar Intellectual Life, by Ammiel Alcalay Languages Judezmo and Hakitia (Judeo-Spanish), by David M. Bunis Judeo-Arabic, by Joseph Chetrit Languages of Iran and Afghanistan, by Haideh Sahim Education, by Rachel Simon Zionism, by Rachel Simon Beliefs and Customs, by Issachar Ben-Ami Aspects of Material Culture, by Esther Juhasz Music, by Mark Kligman The World of Women, by Sara Reguer Part II: Country by Country Survey Ottoman Turkey, by Jacob M. Landau Ottoman Balkans, by Aron Rodrigue The Turkish Republic, by George E. Gruen Syria and Lebanon, by Michael M. Laskier Eretz Yisrael / Palestine 1800-1948, by Ruth Kark and Joseph B. Glass Iraq, by Reeva S. Simon Iran and Afghanistan, by Haideh Sahim Yemen, by Bat-Zion Eraqi-Klorman Egypt and the Sudan, by Jean-Marc Ran Oppenheim Libya, by Harvey E. Goldberg Tunisia, by Haim Saadoun Algeria, by David Cohen Morocco, by Michael M. Laskier and Eliezer Bashan

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Book SynopsisGaurav Desai builds a new history of Africa’s encounter with slavery, colonialism, migration, nationalism, development, and globalization.Trade ReviewCommerce with the Universe offers a smart, engaging, and learned account of the Asian cultural experience in East Africa. The culmination of more than a decade of research, this book is erudite and sophisticated yet eminently readable. -- Peter Kalliney, University of Kentucky, author of Commonwealth of Letters: British Literary Culture and the Emergence of Postcolonial Aesthetics In Gaurav Desai's capable hands, the Indian Ocean emerges as both a historical and critical contact zone, an area that models how to think in interdisciplinary, historically broad, generically diverse, and critically nuanced ways not just about this particular geography or its shaping of events (slavery, colonialism, migration, trade, decolonization, nationalism, and globalization) but also about the very categories of ethnic history and ethnic identity. -- Vilashini Cooppan, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of Worlds Within: National Narratives and Global Connections in Postcolonial Writing Superbly layered and nuanced, Commerce with the Universe is a compelling reading of the imbrication of entangled lives in all their coevalness as well as historical difference. It is a bracing contribution to the emerging episteme of translocal and transregional studies. -- R. Radhakrishnan, University of California, Irvine, author of A Said Dictionary and History, the Human, and the World Between Commerce with the Universe is a masterful demonstration that Africa belongs also to the Indian Ocean. The ocean and its cultures are in our past and also in our future. This is a magnificent introduction to intercultural implications between the cultures that belong to the Indian Ocean. -- V. Y. Mudimbe, Duke University Erudite... richly detailed... Desai explores surprising relationships between Indian businessmen and diasporic Indian culture and touches on class and ethnic relations... Highly recommended. Choice An excellent book... Path-breaking, rigorously researched, and elegantly written. -- Pallavi Rastogi Research in African Literatures [Commerce with the Universe] is a treasure trove of ideas and information... This remarkable book will continue to inspire scholars for many years to come. -- Isabel Hofmeyr Africa Gaurav Desai sets a high standard for Indian Ocean scholarship... Commerce with the Universe will interest scholars and students of literary studies, anthropology, history, and postcolonial and area studies. It deserves a prime place in public and private libraries in the literature on Indian Ocean communities and how they shaped one another through connections, contests and cooperation. -- Jonathan Walz The Indian Economic and Social History Review Desai's savvy take on the nature of identity in diaspora populations presents readers with a new way to understand the culture of modern East Africa. -- Nicolas van de Walle Foreign Affairs Commerce with the Universe provides a detailed and engaging analysis of the Asian literary and cultural encounters in and about East Africa. -- Asma Sayed South Asian DiasporaTable of Contents1. Ocean and Narration 2. Old World Orders: Amitav Ghosh and the Writing of Nostalgia 3. Post-Manichaean Aesthetics: Asian Texts and Lives 4. Through Indian Eyes: Travel and the Performance of Ethnicity 5. Commerce as Romance: Mehta, Madhvani, Manji 6. Lighting a Candle on Mount Kilimanjaro: Partnering with Nyerere 7. Anti Anti-Asianism and the Politics of Dissent: M. G. Vassanji's The Gunny Sack Coda : Entangled Lives Notes Selected References Index

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Book SynopsisGaurav Desai builds a new history of Africa’s encounter with slavery, colonialism, migration, nationalism, development, and globalization.Trade ReviewCommerce with the Universe offers a smart, engaging, and learned account of the Asian cultural experience in East Africa. The culmination of more than a decade of research, this book is erudite and sophisticated yet eminently readable. -- Peter Kalliney, University of Kentucky, author of Commonwealth of Letters: British Literary Culture and the Emergence of Postcolonial Aesthetics In Gaurav Desai's capable hands, the Indian Ocean emerges as both a historical and critical contact zone, an area that models how to think in interdisciplinary, historically broad, generically diverse, and critically nuanced ways not just about this particular geography or its shaping of events (slavery, colonialism, migration, trade, decolonization, nationalism, and globalization) but also about the very categories of ethnic history and ethnic identity. -- Vilashini Cooppan, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of Worlds Within: National Narratives and Global Connections in Postcolonial Writing Superbly layered and nuanced, Commerce with the Universe is a compelling reading of the imbrication of entangled lives in all their coevalness as well as historical difference. It is a bracing contribution to the emerging episteme of translocal and transregional studies. -- R. Radhakrishnan, University of California, Irvine, author of A Said Dictionary and History, the Human, and the World Between Commerce with the Universe is a masterful demonstration that Africa belongs also to the Indian Ocean. The ocean and its cultures are in our past and also in our future. This is a magnificent introduction to intercultural implications between the cultures that belong to the Indian Ocean. -- V. Y. Mudimbe, Duke University Erudite... richly detailed... Desai explores surprising relationships between Indian businessmen and diasporic Indian culture and touches on class and ethnic relations... Highly recommended. Choice An excellent book... Path-breaking, rigorously researched, and elegantly written. -- Pallavi Rastogi Research in African Literatures [Commerce with the Universe] is a treasure trove of ideas and information... This remarkable book will continue to inspire scholars for many years to come. -- Isabel Hofmeyr Africa Gaurav Desai sets a high standard for Indian Ocean scholarship... Commerce with the Universe will interest scholars and students of literary studies, anthropology, history, and postcolonial and area studies. It deserves a prime place in public and private libraries in the literature on Indian Ocean communities and how they shaped one another through connections, contests and cooperation. -- Jonathan Walz The Indian Economic and Social History Review Desai's savvy take on the nature of identity in diaspora populations presents readers with a new way to understand the culture of modern East Africa. -- Nicolas van de Walle Foreign Affairs Commerce with the Universe provides a detailed and engaging analysis of the Asian literary and cultural encounters in and about East Africa. -- Asma Sayed South Asian DiasporaTable of Contents1. Ocean and Narration 2. Old World Orders: Amitav Ghosh and the Writing of Nostalgia 3. Post-Manichaean Aesthetics: Asian Texts and Lives 4. Through Indian Eyes: Travel and the Performance of Ethnicity 5. Commerce as Romance: Mehta, Madhvani, Manji 6. Lighting a Candle on Mount Kilimanjaro: Partnering with Nyerere 7. Anti Anti-Asianism and the Politics of Dissent: M. G. Vassanji's The Gunny Sack Coda : Entangled Lives Notes Selected References Index

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Book SynopsisA compelling work of ethnography, memoir, and fiction that explores the emancipatory power of transcending boundaries.Trade ReviewA powerfully poetic contribution not just to anthropological knowledge but also to our comprehension of the human condition. -- Paul Stoller, West Chester University Jackson's prose shows how for anthropology, thinking must take place in the most unlikely of circumstances: in the very midst of life's tumultuous course, through the very expression of its confounding vicissitudes. -- Anand Pandian, Johns Hopkins University Harmattan is a remarkable inquiry into the intricate interweave between fact and fantasy, anthropological observation and imaginative fiction. In venturing ever further into the text, the reader is deliriously caught, like the book's narrators, in a multichambered realm of storytelling where life, death, friendship, and the elusiveness of truth are the most critical terms of existence. -- Robert Desjarlais, Sarah Lawrence College Michael Jackson's fascinating new book travels the geographical, psychological, and political borderland of social life and 'the more' that lies beyond. Harmattan's characters are unforgettable: Ezekiel, surviving the civil war in Sierra Leone and migrating to the North and the halls of the British Library; Tom, an anthropologist's alter, making the reverse journey to the uncanny tranquility of Ezekiel's post-civil-war-ravaged village, Cosmega; the woman who was not undone by the wreckage; a Kuranko shaman finding his power and overcoming his fear; and an ethnographer encountering himself, or herself, as another, on the borderland where being is both lost and found. In the literary tradition of Calvino and Pessoa, Conrad and Tutuola, but also Victor Turner and Levi-Strauss, Harmattan is a much-needed contribution toward the regeneration of anthropological thinking and writing. -- Stefania Pandolfo, UC Berkeley A slim but thoughtful rendering of an exotic locale that recalls The Quiet American. Kirkus Reviews Beautifully written. Anthropological QuarterlyTable of Contents1. Limitrophes Show and Tell A Place in the Bush Allegories of the Wilderness Within and Without Limits The Top Five Regrets of the Dying Life Is Elsewhere Dark Soundings On Not Being Rule Governed Confronting One's Demons Renata Sentiments Limitrophes The Faraway Tree What Lies Beneath Schrodinger's Cat Notes 2. Harmattan Stories Happen Thousands Bay Persona Non Grata Tom Lannon's Story Cosmega Sangbamba Ezekiel's Story Petra's Letter No Condition Is Permanent The School Morowa Night After Fieldwork Mistral

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Book SynopsisIdentifying with Nationality traces the advent of modern citizenship to multinational, transimperial settings such as turn-of-the-century colonial Alexandria, where ordinary people abandoned old identifiers and grasped nationality as the best means to access the protections promised by expanding states.Trade ReviewWhat nationality are you? In his stunning book, Will Hanley follows this modern question deep into the social existence of ordinary Alexandrians, demonstrating the contradictory effects of its imposition. The results open a portal, not simply on a unique city in the tumultuous years between Ottoman rule and Egyptian semi-sovereignty, but also on a pivotal global experience that historians have missed. In this lucidly written and well-researched book, Hanley rewrites the history of international law and intervenes brilliantly in multiple literatures. A must-read. -- Samuel Moyn, Harvard University, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Hanley's book is a superb historical and sociolegal account of the rise of nationality-the universal regime of legal identification that captures what is unique about the modern world. Along the way, Hanley vividly captures the loss of another world: of concrete and heterogeneous forms of life that sought protection in other networks of affiliation. I recommend this remarkably researched and beautifully written book to scholars in Middle Eastern studies, and also to anyone who is thinking about a key characteristic of our world-the persistence of statelessness. -- Samera Esmeir, University of California, Berkeley Identifying with Nationality is a magisterial investigation into Alexandria's diverse population, which comprised interwoven European, colonial, local, imperial, and national entities. Will Hanley examines this patchwork setting, clarifies that nationality at the end of the nineteenth century was a European privilege, and explores the process by which it would become what it is today: the most fundamental human right. An illuminating masterpiece. -- Patrick Weil, vsiting professor of law and Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow, Yale UniversityTable of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Nationality Grasped Part I: Settings 1. Vulgar Cosmopolitanism 2. Keywords Part II: Means 3. Papers 4. Census 5. Money 6. Marriage Part III: Other Nationalities 7. Europeans 8. Foreigners 9. Proteges 10. Bad Subjects 11. Ottomans 12. Locals Epilogue: Egyptians in a World of Universal Nationality Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisSafwan M. Masri explores the factors that have shaped Tunisia's exceptional experience, arguing that its history of reformism set it on a separate trajectory from the rest of the region. Based on interviews with experts, leaders, activists, and citizens, Masri's account is critical for understanding not only Tunisia but also the broader Arab world.Trade ReviewSafwan M. Masri offers an informed history and an astute assessment of the case of Tunisia, specifically focusing on the country's distinctive blend of modern Islam and secular democracy. He provides an extended and authoritative contemplation and a unique synthesis of the phenomenon that is Tunisia. -- Brinkley Messick, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsMaps Foreword Preface Introduction I. Tunisian Spring: Timeline of Tunisia's Revolution 1. Can Tunisia Serve as a Model? 2. Prelude to Revolution 3. If the People Will to Live 4. A Remarkable Transition 5. The Morning After II. Roots of Tunisian Identity 6. Carthage 7. Tunisian Islam 8. Influencing Rivalries 9. The Age of Modern Reform 10. 1956 III. L'Ecole, la Femme, et "Laicite" 11. The Father of Tunisia 12. Putting Religion in Its Place 13. Educating a Nation 14. A Different Trajectory 15. The Education Paradox Epilogue: An Arab Anomaly Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Glossary Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn June 1887, a man known as General Husayn, a manumitted slave turned dignitary in the Ottoman province of Tunis, passed away in Florence after a life crossing empires. M’hamed Oualdi investigates Husayn’s transimperial life and the posthumous battle over his fortune to recover the transnational dimensions of North African history.Trade ReviewM'hamed Oualdi’s biography cum social history is dazzling. In life and death, General Husayn Ibn ‘Abdallah's story reveals unlikely itineraries, unsuspected traveling companions, and hidden transactions that call into question conventional histories of nineteenth-century North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. The author’s presentation of archives as exiles, émigrés, and migrants is particularly original. -- Julia Clancy-Smith, author of Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800-1900A Slave Between Empires is a bold reinterpretation of North Africa’s modern history: it revisits time and space by going beyond the narrow lens of colonization and by examining Tunisia as part of a large set of regional (European and Ottoman) networks. A must-read by one of the best historians of the Maghreb. -- Malika Zeghal, Harvard UniversityThis meticulously researched and beautifully written book shows how new insights into Tunisian history can be gained by bracketing the colonial and making a place for “other chronologies.” This historiographical positioning brings a full Mediterranean context back into view, putting the Ottoman empire, law, and Tunisian family history onto center stage. -- Benjamin Claude Brower, author of A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of French Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902The death documents of this post-colonial Ottoman Tunisian elite settler in Tuscany were a dense knot of financial, intellectual, legal, and kinship ties. Oualdi untangles this net before our eyes, revealing a figure who bridged the Mediterranean in a direction that colonialism tells us was not possible: from south to north. -- Will Hanley, author of Identifying with Nationality: Europeans, Ottomans, and Egyptians in AlexandriaOualdi has much to offer his readers by bringing insights from French and Arabic historiography on Tunisia’s Ottoman and colonial past to an English readership, revealing the entangled nature of Tunisian, North African, French, Italian, and Ottoman histories. Following the life (and afterlife) of a slave turned minister, A Slave Between Empires is rich with new insights and tantalizing details, and Oualdi has clearly scoured many archives to put this together. -- Amy Kallander, author of Women, Gender, and the Palace Households in Ottoman TunisiaOualdi has set out “an entangled history” indeed, one worthy of non-academic treatments, if not novels or a movie or two. * Asian Review of Books *At a time when Turkey and France are jockeying for influence across the Mediterranean from Cyprus to Libya, A Slave Between Empires has an odd contemporary relevance. * Current History *The approach taken to an individual life, traversing imperial borders and religious and social worlds, will also be of great methodological interest to those trying to situate new global histories between empires. * Journal of British Studies *An impressive study. * Sehepunkte *A vibrant and thought-provoking examination of the people and events in the region of North Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. * Middle Ground Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroduction: A North African Land and Its Ottoman and Colonial Legacies1. Husayn: An Ottoman Reformer and a Product of Ottoman Reforms2. Husayn’s Wealth: How to Build and Protect an Estate Between Empires3. A World of “Affairs”: Litigation as a Tool for Negotiation4. The Diplomatic Conflicts Over Husayn’s Estate: Ottoman and Italian Interventions5. Sovereigns, Mothers, and Creditors: The Agency of Husayn’s Potential Heirs6. Husayn’s Legacies in Colonial Tunisia: An EpilogueConclusion: Local and Imperial Histories of the MaghrebSelect GlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisShouting in a Cage offers new ways to understand co-optation’s power and its limits by examining two co-opted parties, the Wafd Party in Egypt and the Istiqlal Party in Morocco.Trade ReviewThis is the book on co-optation that we never knew we needed. Fenner’s book does something that only the very best books in the social sciences do: it takes a concept that readers think they already understand and forces them to rethink what it means, why it occurs, and how it works. This book offers a new way to understand why political parties become co-opted and how they survive it. -- Adria K. Lawrence, author of Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism: Anti-Colonial Protest in the French EmpireThe officially recognized opposition parties of the Arab world’s authoritarian regimes are often viewed as mere handmaidens to dictatorship. In this remarkable study, based on years of rich archival and ethnographic research in Egypt and Morocco, Sofia Fenner offers an alternative and wholly convincing perspective, describing how the rigors of life under dictatorship force once-independent political parties to invest in survival at the expense of trying to garner mass support. Though this renders them unable to claim a share of power, it endows them with a capacity for resilience and even ferocity that speaks to their independent origins and their future potential. This is the work of a gifted scholar that is necessary reading for all scholars of authoritarian regimes, democratization, and political parties. -- Tarek Masoud, Harvard UniversityHistorically rich and intellectually compelling, Shouting in a Cage challenges conventional thinking about opposition co-optation and reconceptualizes it as practice and process while elegantly centering narrative as a central political force. -- Sarah E. Parkinson, author of Beyond the Lines: Social Networks and Palestinian Militant Organizations in Wartime LebanonCo-optation is one of political science’s strangest concepts—always invoked yet seldom examined. Sofia Fenner meticulously gives form to this amorphous idea with a creative pairing of neutralized parties in Egypt and Morocco. This is an illuminating analysis of the terrible options facing political parties under authoritarianism. -- Mona El-Ghobashy, author of Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary SituationTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on Transliterations, Names, and TitlesIntroductionPart I. Co-optation in History and Theory1. The Wafd and the Istiqlal2. Conceptualizing Co-optationPart II. A Changed Life: How Co-optation Neutralizes Opposition3. Co-optation as Interpretative Dilemma: Istiqlal’s Democratic Journey4. Co-optation as Interpretive Dilemma: The Wafd at WarPart III. Life Goes On: How Co-opted Opposition Survives5. Party-as-Family6. Generation After Generation: Making Sense of Confrontational TurnsConclusion: Authoritarianism as TragedyNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisShouting in a Cage offers new ways to understand co-optation’s power and its limits by examining two co-opted parties, the Wafd Party in Egypt and the Istiqlal Party in Morocco.Trade ReviewThis is the book on co-optation that we never knew we needed. Fenner’s book does something that only the very best books in the social sciences do: it takes a concept that readers think they already understand and forces them to rethink what it means, why it occurs, and how it works. This book offers a new way to understand why political parties become co-opted and how they survive it. -- Adria K. Lawrence, author of Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism: Anti-Colonial Protest in the French EmpireThe officially recognized opposition parties of the Arab world’s authoritarian regimes are often viewed as mere handmaidens to dictatorship. In this remarkable study, based on years of rich archival and ethnographic research in Egypt and Morocco, Sofia Fenner offers an alternative and wholly convincing perspective, describing how the rigors of life under dictatorship force once-independent political parties to invest in survival at the expense of trying to garner mass support. Though this renders them unable to claim a share of power, it endows them with a capacity for resilience and even ferocity that speaks to their independent origins and their future potential. This is the work of a gifted scholar that is necessary reading for all scholars of authoritarian regimes, democratization, and political parties. -- Tarek Masoud, Harvard UniversityHistorically rich and intellectually compelling, Shouting in a Cage challenges conventional thinking about opposition co-optation and reconceptualizes it as practice and process while elegantly centering narrative as a central political force. -- Sarah E. Parkinson, author of Beyond the Lines: Social Networks and Palestinian Militant Organizations in Wartime LebanonCo-optation is one of political science’s strangest concepts—always invoked yet seldom examined. Sofia Fenner meticulously gives form to this amorphous idea with a creative pairing of neutralized parties in Egypt and Morocco. This is an illuminating analysis of the terrible options facing political parties under authoritarianism. -- Mona El-Ghobashy, author of Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary SituationTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on Transliterations, Names, and TitlesIntroductionPart I. Co-optation in History and Theory1. The Wafd and the Istiqlal2. Conceptualizing Co-optationPart II. A Changed Life: How Co-optation Neutralizes Opposition3. Co-optation as Interpretative Dilemma: Istiqlal’s Democratic Journey4. Co-optation as Interpretive Dilemma: The Wafd at WarPart III. Life Goes On: How Co-opted Opposition Survives5. Party-as-Family6. Generation After Generation: Making Sense of Confrontational TurnsConclusion: Authoritarianism as TragedyNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisBreaking new ground in the understanding of sexuality's complex relationship to colonialism, this book illuminates the attempts at regulating prostitution in colonial Nigeria. It shows, British colonizers saw prostitution as an African form of sexual primitivity and a problem to be solved as part of imperialism's "civilizing mission".Trade ReviewNSA Book Award, Nigerian Studies Association, 2016. "The first comprehensive history of sexuality of colonial Nigeria, Aderinto's book is an invaluable addition to both historiographies of colonial Africa and African sexualities."--Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexuality"This book makes important inroads in the history of sexuality and gender, childhood, urban history, colonialism, the military, and the history of medicine in Africa and in twentieth-century world history."--American Historical Review "This noteworthy text brings to light the intimate connection between sexual politics and nationalism in colonial Nigeria during the first half of the twentieth century. . . . A solid contribution to scholarly works on sexuality in Africa and is of interest to scholars and students in the fields of African studies, gender, and history."--Journal of West African History"Aderinto's exploration of the special role of soldiers in the history of prostitution control in Lagos is especially fascinating and insightful."--Africa"Saheed Aderinto has produced a very important contribution to African social history and Nigerian historiography specifically. His intellectual journey, as revealed in his introduction, is a 'must read' for graduate students for this book is the outcome of a scholar who listened closely to his sources and grappled with the complex realities they revealed. . . . Of great value to scholars interested in public health, colonial law and policy, gender studies, as well as urban history."--Canadian Journal of History"Saheed Aderinto's fine book demonstrates how the politics, policies, and popular culture debates about sexuality both animated and crystalized many of the ambitions and struggles of colonial and nationalist projects in twentieth-century Nigeria. . . . Particularly persuasive is the author's ability to show how concerns about illicit sexuality could be simultaneously a colonial rationale for subjugating the native population and a pillar of Nigerian nationalists' demands for independence. . . . It certainly shows that concerns about illicit sexuality continue to be central to postcolonial statecraft, just as Aderinto has persuasively demonstrated for Nigeria's colonial and nationalist projects in this excellent book."--International Journal of African Historical Studies"A fine study of that rarity in South African history: a proud tradition of educational achievement for African students that has endured for more than a century."--American Historical Review"When Sex Threatened the State will stand the test of time, not only for the quality of Aderinto's analyses, sources, and interpretations, but also for the ways he placed sexuality at the center of core structures of everyday life in colonial Nigeria. This is a major contribution to African studies and historical scholarship on Nigeria."--Journal of Retracing Africa "Engagingly written, perspective in its analysis, and concerned with issues of deep historical and contemporary importance, this book has much to offer those interested in not only African and sexuality studies but also urbanization and migration studies, as well as colonialism, nationalism, and race."--Journal of the History of Sexuality "A rigorous and innovative study of illicit sexuality and attempts at regulating it in colonial Lagos. . . . Without question the most detailed and systematic examination of prostitution in west Africa. . . . This is an innovative, well-researched, and extremely valuable work of scholarship."--Steven Pierce, author of Farmers and the State in Colonial Kano: Land Tenure and the Legal Imagination "A significant contribution to Nigerian and African historical studies as well as to the study of sex and sexuality within the British Empire."--Gloria Chuku, author of Igbo Women and Economic Transformation in Southeastern Nigeria

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A superb and original contribution to our knowledge of the South African War. The author has chosen a regional study to penetrate beyond the mythology of past historiography to expose the real and individual experiences of ordinary men and women from the Winburg district of the Orange Free State. It is an honest, thoroughly researched study of a community torn by war, civil war, and racism. Apart from Boers fighting for their republic's independence and Boer women caught up in the conflict, it was a base for Boers collaborating with the British and a base for an armed black corps in British military service. This adds fascinating dimensions to the topic."--Fransjohan Pretorius, professor emeritus of history, University of Pretoria "This work will be appreciated by any reader who . . . has struggled to understand how the Boers and the British emerged so quickly from this bitter conflict into cooperative agreement."--H-Net Reviews"Oral history and social history at its best…This fascinating study recounts the reactions of ordinary people in a Free State community, from those committed to the Boer cause to those who were ambivalent or neutral, or who even collaborated with the British."--Johannesburg Sunday Times"[An] outstanding contribution to our historiography."--Pretoria News"This book is a multi-dimensional and exceptionally vivid analysis of a Free State community during the war. It serves as a model of its kind and adds significantly to the existing historiography."--Albert Grundlingh, author of The Dynamics of Treason: Boer Collaboration in the South African War of 1899-1902 "Boje's examination of the Winburg district provides an excellent case study of life in the Orange Free State during the South African War."--Stephen M. Miller, University of Maine"Those with an interest in South African history, the Boer War, and the history of occupation will find this a very useful read."--NYMAS Reviews"Boje's examination of the Winburg district provides an excellent case study of life in the Orange Free State during the South African War."--Stephen M. Miller, University of Maine

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A well written and often gripping ethnographical study of the young, marginalized, and poor youth who live there, and who are separated from distant homes that are either unable or unwilling to provide for them. . . . The book's findings and discussions around gender dynamics make a worthy contribution to anthropological analysis of youth and understandings of the logics of social organization that develop in tough urban environments."--African Studies Quarterly "Margaretten's ethnographic realism and dialogical writing style make for compelling reading, while her appreciation of Zulu idioms and metaphors adds depth and thickness to her ethnographic accounts."--Journal of the Anthropological Institute "An important contribution to the anthropology of youth in Africa. Margaretten's rich, experience-near, ethnographic descriptions support a complex analysis of the lives of South African street youth in a context of dramatic inequality. It is nearly impossible to read Street Life under a Roof without feeling a connection with the youth of Point Place, and taking a deep interest in their struggles with love, family, and money."--Daniel Mains, author of Hope Is Cut: Youth, Unemployment, and the Future in Urban Ethiopia"An exemplary ethnography of post-apartheid life. Margaretten takes us to a place that few people know even exists: a self-run shelter for homeless young people in Durban. What emerges is a searing portrait of drugs, violence, and AIDS but also of compassion, love, loyalty, and humanity."--Mark Hunter, author of Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa"A major addition to the literature on youth in Africa as well as 'homelessness' and street children more generally."--Adam Ashforth, author of Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa

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Book SynopsisThe revolt against white rule in Rhodesia nurtured incipient local feminisms in women who imagined independence as a road to gender equity and economic justice. But the country's rebirth as Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe's rise to power dashed these hopes. Using history, literature, participant observation, and interviews, Carolyn Martin Shaw surveys Zimbabwean feminisms from the colonial era to today. She examines how actions as clearly disparate as baking scones for self-protection, carrying guns in the liberation, and feeling morally superior to men represent sources of female empowerment. She also presents the ways women across Zimbabwean society--rural and urban, professional and domestic--accommodated or confronted post-independence setbacks. Finally, Shaw offers perspectives on the ways contemporary Zimbabwean women depart from the prevailing view that feminism is a Western imposition having little to do with African women. The result of thirty years of experience, Women and PowerTrade Review"[An] engaging contribution to the anthropology of African feminism. Recommended."--Choice "[Women and Power in Zimbabwe] has paved the way for future research on feminism in Zimbabwe to interrogate the reconfiguration of gender roles and relations and Shona patriarchy's inherent, adaptive mechanisms that accommodate situations that perplex its internal logic."--American Anthropologist "Independence in Zimbabwe did not bring liberation for women, but failed promises gave momentum to their efforts to unite across differences. Carolyn Martin Shaw's intimate account of diverse women, from ex-combatants to beauty queens, NGO activists, and working wives and mothers, offers an engaged scholar's rich insights into the power of feminism to envision change."--Florence E. Babb, author of The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories"What happens to dreams when the revolution falls short? Drawing together mixed genres including ethnography, performance and literature, Martin Shaw offers an engaging portrait of postcolonial Zimbabwe through the storied lives of women."--Paulla A. Ebron, author of Performing Africa"Carefully illustrates Zimbabwean women's efforts to establish a feminist habitus and provides an excellent analysis of non-Western feminisms. The author dares to discuss some very intimate issues about feminism and sexuality that are rarely articulated in public."--Betty J. Harris, author of The Political Economy of the Southern African Periphery: Cottage Industries, Factories, and Female Wage Labour in Swaziland Compared

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In the tradition of Michel Foucault's work, Rosa de Jorio's book represents a fascinating analysis of the politics of cultural heritage in Mali in the context of the privatization of cultural initiatives and the rise of fundamentalist Islam."--Jean-Loup Amselle, author of Branchements: Anthropologie de l'universalité des cultures"A marvelous text. De Jorio not only discusses the cultural ramifications of 'heritage' in Mali, but considers it in the wake of Islamist and Tuareg rebellions in the north. She demonstrates powerfully how cultural heritage implicates questions of religious practice as they relate to the exercise of power."--Paul Stoller, author of Yaya's Story: The Quest for Well-Being in the World"De Jorio elegantly shows how notions of 'heritage' have been deployed and contested by Malian politicians, by foreign NGOs and especially UNESCO, and of course by different segments of the Malian population who are always the targets and sometimes the victims of 'heritage' politics."--Robert Launay, author of Traders without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities"A much anticipated, fascinating, and timely account of the contested politics of public culture in a time of turbulent and sometimes violent change in Mali. . . . The book fascinates with its dexterous application of social thought and theory."--Journal of Modern African Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBook of the Year, Global Communication and Social Change Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), 2019 UCT Book Award (University of Cape Town), 2020 "Wasserman’s book offers a rich and insightful account of the South African media in the context of shifting centres of global power and knowledge production. While focusing on the South African transition, the book demonstrates the close interrelationship between the local and the global, between the dominance of the advanced democracies of the West and the struggles of the Global South for recognition and influence. By taking the perspective of the Global South, familiar concepts such as citizenship, tabloidization, and mediation are put in a new light, thus enriching our theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of the media in a changing world."--Katrin Voltmer, author of Comparing Political Communication across Time and Space: New Studies in an Emerging Field"Wasserman's book would surely be deemed as one of the most powerful articulations from the Global South, urging media professionals and scholars to rethink and recontextualize global journalism in this post-West, post-order, post-truth world."--Anbin Shi, Tsinghua University"Wasserman shines a bright light on the changing media's role and journalism practice during the transition to democracy in South Africa....A must-read for all who want to understand South Africa's embrace of democracy and the political economy of communication therein." --The Journalist"The strength of this book is not only that Herman Wasserman gives us a comprehensive overview of the major changes in South Africa's journalism industries since the transition to democracy, but that he does it through the theoretical lens of Global South thinking." --Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Book SynopsisFunmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a Nigerian feminist who fought for suffrage and equal rights for her countrywomen long before the second wave of the women's movement in the United States. She also joined the struggle for Nigerian independence as an activist in the anticolonial movement. This book presents the story of this courageous woman.Table of ContentsHistorical background -- "We two form a multitude" : the ancestors -- "When l whispers" : early marriage and family life -- "Lioness of Lisabi" : the fall a ruler -- "A true citizen" : the national arena -- "For their freedoms" : t international sphere -- "Virtue is better than wealth" : death and legacy.

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Book SynopsisFollowing one African nation's flow of populations and culture in the colonial and postcolonial worldsTrade Review"A thorough examination of the African nation of Equatorial Guinea and its complex political, cultural, and literary history. Africans in Europe makes a definitive contribution to the burgeoning field of Afro-Spanish studies and the literature of Equatorial Guinea."--Silvia Bermudez, author of La esfinge de la escritura: la poesia etica de Blanca Varela "Ugarte's refined prose, playful ideas, and timely and pertinent subject matter highlight the value of Equatorial Guinean emixile writers for understanding global migrations and cultural cross-fertilization."--Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction ix 1. Emixile 1 2. Out of Equatorial Guinea 18 3. The First Wave 30 4. Donato Ndongo: Model of Emixile 58 5. El metro (The Subway): Saga of the African Emigrant 76 6. Between Life and Death: The Macias Generation 90 7. Exiles Stay at Home 112 8. Gendering Emixile: The Mythic Return 133 9. Ending with a Beginning 156 Notes 169 Bibliography 179 Index 193

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Book SynopsisThe revolt against white rule in Rhodesia nurtured incipient local feminisms in women who imagined independence as a road to gender equity and economic justice. But the country's rebirth as Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe's rise to power dashed these hopes. Using history, literature, participant observation, and interviews, Carolyn Martin Shaw surveys Zimbabwean feminisms from the colonial era to today. She examines how actions as clearly disparate as baking scones for self-protection, carrying guns in the liberation, and feeling morally superior to men represent sources of female empowerment. She also presents the ways women across Zimbabwean society--rural and urban, professional and domestic--accommodated or confronted post-independence setbacks. Finally, Shaw offers perspectives on the ways contemporary Zimbabwean women depart from the prevailing view that feminism is a Western imposition having little to do with African women. The result of thirty years of experience, Women and PowerTrade Review"[An] engaging contribution to the anthropology of African feminism. Recommended."--Choice "[Women and Power in Zimbabwe] has paved the way for future research on feminism in Zimbabwe to interrogate the reconfiguration of gender roles and relations and Shona patriarchy's inherent, adaptive mechanisms that accommodate situations that perplex its internal logic."--American Anthropologist "Independence in Zimbabwe did not bring liberation for women, but failed promises gave momentum to their efforts to unite across differences. Carolyn Martin Shaw's intimate account of diverse women, from ex-combatants to beauty queens, NGO activists, and working wives and mothers, offers an engaged scholar's rich insights into the power of feminism to envision change."--Florence E. Babb, author of The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories"What happens to dreams when the revolution falls short? Drawing together mixed genres including ethnography, performance and literature, Martin Shaw offers an engaging portrait of postcolonial Zimbabwe through the storied lives of women."--Paulla A. Ebron, author of Performing Africa"Carefully illustrates Zimbabwean women's efforts to establish a feminist habitus and provides an excellent analysis of non-Western feminisms. The author dares to discuss some very intimate issues about feminism and sexuality that are rarely articulated in public."--Betty J. Harris, author of The Political Economy of the Southern African Periphery: Cottage Industries, Factories, and Female Wage Labour in Swaziland Compared

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Book SynopsisUp to 2012, Mali was a poster child of African democracy, despite multiple signs of growing dissatisfaction with the democratic experiment. Then disaster struck, bringing many of the nation's unresolved contradictions to international attention. A military coup carved off the country's south. A revolt by a coalition of Tuareg and extremist Islamist forces shook the north. The events, so violent and unexpected, forced experts to reassess Mali's democratic institutions and the neoliberal economic reforms enacted in conjunction with the move toward democracy. Rosa De Jorio's detailed study of cultural heritage and its transformations provides a key to understanding the impasse that confronts Malian democracy. As she shows, postcolonial Mali privileged its cultural heritage to display itself on the regional and international scene. The neoliberal reforms both intensified and altered this trend. Profiling heritage sites ranging from statues of colonial leaders to women's museums to historicTrade Review"In the tradition of Michel Foucault's work, Rosa de Jorio's book represents a fascinating analysis of the politics of cultural heritage in Mali in the context of the privatization of cultural initiatives and the rise of fundamentalist Islam."--Jean-Loup Amselle, author of Branchements: Anthropologie de l'universalité des cultures"A marvelous text. De Jorio not only discusses the cultural ramifications of 'heritage' in Mali, but considers it in the wake of Islamist and Tuareg rebellions in the north. She demonstrates powerfully how cultural heritage implicates questions of religious practice as they relate to the exercise of power."--Paul Stoller, author of Yaya's Story: The Quest for Well-Being in the World"De Jorio elegantly shows how notions of 'heritage' have been deployed and contested by Malian politicians, by foreign NGOs and especially UNESCO, and of course by different segments of the Malian population who are always the targets and sometimes the victims of 'heritage' politics."--Robert Launay, author of Traders without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities"A much anticipated, fascinating, and timely account of the contested politics of public culture in a time of turbulent and sometimes violent change in Mali. . . . The book fascinates with its dexterous application of social thought and theory."--Journal of Modern African Studies

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Book SynopsisThe end of apartheid brought South Africa into the global media environment. Outside companies invested in the nation's newspapers while South African conglomerates pursued lucrative tech ventures and communication markets around the world. Many observers viewed the rapid development of South African media as a roadmap from authoritarianism to global modernity. Herman Wasserman analyzes the debates surrounding South Africa's new media presence against the backdrop of rapidly changing geopolitics. His exploration reveals how South African disputes regarding access to, and representation in, the media reflect the domination and inequality in the global communication sphere. Optimists see post-apartheid media as providing a vital space that encourages exchanges of opinion in a young democracy. Critics argue the public sphere mirrors South Africa's past divisions and privileges the viewpoints of the elite. Wasserman delves into the ways these simplistic narratives obscure the country's intTrade ReviewBook of the Year, Global Communication and Social Change Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), 2019 UCT Book Award (University of Cape Town), 2020 "Wasserman’s book offers a rich and insightful account of the South African media in the context of shifting centres of global power and knowledge production. While focusing on the South African transition, the book demonstrates the close interrelationship between the local and the global, between the dominance of the advanced democracies of the West and the struggles of the Global South for recognition and influence. By taking the perspective of the Global South, familiar concepts such as citizenship, tabloidization, and mediation are put in a new light, thus enriching our theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of the media in a changing world."--Katrin Voltmer, author of Comparing Political Communication across Time and Space: New Studies in an Emerging Field"Wasserman's book would surely be deemed as one of the most powerful articulations from the Global South, urging media professionals and scholars to rethink and recontextualize global journalism in this post-West, post-order, post-truth world."--Anbin Shi, Tsinghua University"Wasserman shines a bright light on the changing media's role and journalism practice during the transition to democracy in South Africa....A must-read for all who want to understand South Africa's embrace of democracy and the political economy of communication therein." --The Journalist"The strength of this book is not only that Herman Wasserman gives us a comprehensive overview of the major changes in South Africa's journalism industries since the transition to democracy, but that he does it through the theoretical lens of Global South thinking." --Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewFirst Book Award, African Literature Association, 2017. "Drawing on extensive research in repositories on both sides of the Atlantic, Robolin demonstrates that a transnational literary culture is not only imagined--a virtual geography--but also an active network painstakingly constructed by 'constructive engagements' among writers: Richard Rive drawing a map of literary Cape Town for Langston Hughes, then, or Alice Walker describing her garden in a letter to Bessie Head. Elaborating the ways African American and South African writers have striven to render their worlds visible to each other, Grounds of Engagement reminds us that diaspora is knitwork, a complex interweaving of discrete gestures of belonging." --Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism "Grounds of Engagement fills a wide gap in existing scholarship and is a joy to read. The chapters on Richard Rive and Peter Abrahams will be a revelation to people who have not yet immersed themselves in the literature of that generation. The book's work on Keorapetsie Kgositsile is a landmark intervention."--Aldon Nielsen, author of Integral Music: Languages of African American Innovation"Robolin's study succeeds so admirably because he is alive to the simultaneous promise and danger of solidarity, and the complexities of attempts to remap relations across borders without reinscribing power relations."--Wasafiri "Grounds of Engagement challenges readers of African American and South African literature and history to rethink and revisit the discourse about the relationships between race, identity, and place. . . . A well written and noteworthy contribution to comparative literary history."--Journal of African American History"Robolin provides an invigorating model for analyzing spatial poetics and politics."--American Literature "This fascinating, well-documented study makes a significant contribution to understanding the intertextual and transnational interactions of South African and African American writers at a time of crucial struggles against racism in both countries. Highly recommended."--Choice"Stéphane Robolin has brilliantly taken his cue from the geographical and race-laden correspondence between Langston Hughes and Richard Rive to forge an expansive reading of literary relationships and artistic texts. Reading spaces of cultural synergy and mapping transnational black imaginaries, he expertly brings together the social, cultural, and physical geography of South African and African American writers during the era of segregation and apartheid. Within a dual focus on literary history and racial history, he skillfully navigates the complex intellectual terrain of under-explored artistic networks and linked geographies and does so with a superb mastery of cultural theory and spatial theory. The rewarding result in Grounds of Engagement is substantial grounds for celebration; it is a cutting edge scholarship and a major contribution to transnational and global studies."--Thadious M. Davis, author of Southscapes: Geographies of Race, Region, and Literature

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Book SynopsisRethinking place and history in Northwest AfricaTrade ReviewThis edited volume presents a compilation of coherent, well-structured case studies addressing highly significant issues for the contemporary Sahara. [O]ffers a groundbreaking study of the Sahara. * Social Anthropology *Altogether, this book is highly recommendable. Its key contribution is in teaching us to conceive of the Sahara not as a region clearly defined by natural features, but as a space that exists, extends, and expands according to its vibrant human interconnectedness. * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *[This] book makes a compelling case for the importance of Saharan history, both in its own right and in its articulations with the histories of other regions.November 2013 * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on spelling and transliterationIntroduction Time and Space in the Sahara Judith Scheele and James McDougall Part I. Framing Saharan History1. Situations Both Alike? Connectivity, the Mediterranean, the Sahara Peregrine Horden2. On Being Saharan E. Ann McDougall3. Saharan Trade in Classical Antiquity Katia Schörle4. Frontiers, Borderlands, and Saharan/World History James McDougallPart II. Environment, Territory, and Community 5. The Rites of Baba Merzug: Diaspora, Ibadism, and Social Status in the Valley of the Mzab Fatma Oussedik 6. Celebrating mawlid in Timimoun: Ritual as Words in Motion, Space as Time Stood Still Abderrahmane Moussaoui7. Villages and Crossroads: Changing Territorialities among the Tuareg of Northern Mali in the Twentieth Century Charles Grémont 8. Ethnicity and Interdependence: Moors and Haalpulaar'en in the Senegal Valley Olivier LeservoisierPart III. Strangers, Space, and Labor9. Mauritania and the New Frontier of Europe: From Transit to Residence Armelle Choplin10. Living Together and Living Apart in Nouakchott Laurence Marfaing11. Cultural Interaction and the Artisanal Economy in Tamanrasset Dida BadiPart IV. Economies of Movement12. Notes on the Informal Economy in Southern Morocco Mohamed Oudada 13. Garage or caravanserail; Saharan Connectivity in al-Khalīl, Northern Mali Judith Scheele14. Movements of People and Goods: Local Impacts and Dynamics of Migration in the Central Sahara Julien BrachetReferencesContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisA compelling collection that shows how interviews can be used to generate new meaningTrade ReviewAfrican Art, Interviews, Narratives . . . is a highly reflective collection of essays about the work of constructing art history out of interviews. Designed to unsettle and open up the relationship between interviews and scholarship, it speaks to the work of anthropology by aiming to better understand the nature of the interview process itself, how we produce and convey meanings from interviews and related documents. While it will be of particular interest to anthropologists working as museum curators, it will be equally useful to any professional whose craft largely depends upon interviews. * Leonardo Reviews *In these essays, one hears the narratives and learns the perspectives of a diverse group of people that greatly illuminate both meaning and intent. * African Studies Review *African Art, Interviews, Narratives provides scholars the chance to reexamine the role of the interviewer, interlocutor, and art historian when making printed text from recorded interviews. * Oral History Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Work of Interviews Carol Magee and Joanna Grabski 1. Talking to People about Art Patrick McNaughton 2. Ghostly Stories: Interviews with Artists in Dakar and the Productive Space around Absence Joanna Grabski 3. Can the Artist Speak? Hamid Kachmar's Subversive Redemptive Art of ResistanceJoseph Jordan 4. Photography, Narrative Interventions, and (Cross) Cultural Representations Carol Magee 5. Narrating the Artist: Seyni Camara and the Multiple Constructions of the Artistic Persona Silvia Forni 6. Interview—Akinbode Akinbiyi Akinbode Akinbiyi 7. Inter-Weaving Narratives of Art and Activism: Sandra Kriel's Heroic Women Kim Miller 8. Politics of Narrative at the African Burial Ground in NYC: The Final MonumentAndrea E. Frohne 9. Who Owns the Past: Constructing an Art History of a Malian MasqueradeMary Jo Arnoldi 10. Framing Practices: Artists' Voices and the Power of Self-RepresentationChristine Mullen Kreamer11. Undisciplined KnowledgeAllan deSouza and Allyson PurpuraAppendix: InterlocutorsContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisA penetrating look at musical leisure during a time of social, political, and cultural change in GhanaTrade ReviewHighlife Saturday Night is an excellent read for scholars and students interested in the complex dynamics of social and cultural change in urbanizing 20th-century West Africa, as well as for those focused on the performative nature of identities and popular culture more broadly. The subject of "Saturday Night" may also appeal to general readers curious about the lives and everyday experiences of ordinary West Africans during this intense time of political, economic, and cultural transformation. * Ghana Studies *Highlife Saturday Night is an impressive monograph that should remind scholars of the porous nature of disciplinary boundaries, and reaffirm the important perspective symbolic-aesthetic forms like music offer the humanities and social sciences, and in this case, the construction of West African social history. * Journal of West African History *This book is well-written and will appeal to those interested in Ghanaian urban history and highlife music, as well as those wanting to know more about youth and popular culture in general. The analysis of the history and organization of the social and literary clubs is some of the most insightful in the book. Plageman also excels in his portrayal of highlife music, musicians, and middle-class men. This book makes significant contributions to the history of highlife music and successfully weaves highlife musical culture into the wider social and political net of urban Ghana. * American Historical Review *Dr. Plageman has written an excellent book. . . . [T]his publication does more than merely document the features of highlife music in urban Ghana: it also investigates the material basis and the political import of this genre of music. . . . As a document of urban history, this book is brilliant. It is a major addition to the small collection of books on the history of urban Ghana. . . . [I]t significantly extends existing work because it takes an urban-wide view and substantially analyses youth culture in terms of its political, historical, social and even economic dynamics. * African Review of Economics and Finance *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsEthnomusicology Multimedia Series PrefaceIntroduction: The Historical Importance of Urban Ghana's Saturday Nights1. Popular Music, Political Authority, and Social Possibilities in the Southern Gold Coast, 1890-19402. The Making of a Middle Class: Urban Social Clubs and the Evolution of Highlife Music, 1915-19403. The Friction on the Floor: Negotiating Nightlife in Accra, 1940-19604. "The Highlife was Born in Ghana": Politics, Culture, and the Making of a National Music, 1950-19655. "We Were the Ones Who Composed the Songs": The Promises and Pitfalls of Being a Bandsman, 1945-1970EpilogueGlossaryNotesDiscographyBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAddresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledgeTrade Review[T]his volume is a valuable contribution to the general field of anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. . . . Recommended. * Choice *This volume is a good addition to the anthropological body of work on the region. * Social Anthropology *Spanning audiences of undergraduates, graduates and established researchers, this volume will be an extremely useful reference point for scholars of the MENA region, in anthropology and beyond. * African Studies Bulletin *The volume, including its comprehensive bibliography, will benefit students of Middle East studies looking to see how anthropology contributes to the study of the region. Anthropology students will find theoretical topics germane not only to the region but also to broader anthropological conversations. Readers will also enjoy the fine ethnography that drives these major theoretical trajectories in the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. * Review of Middle East Studies * Anthropology of the Middle East is a remarkable contribution to the field. * Anthropology of Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Power and Knowledge in the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Sherine Hafez and Susan SlyomovicsPart I. Knowledge Production in Middle East and North Africa Anthropology 1. State of the State of the Art Studies: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Susan Slyomovics2. Identity and Difference in the Middle East and North Africa: A Review Essay Seteney Shami and Nefissa Naguib3. Anthropology's Middle Eastern Prehistory: An Archaeology of Knowledge Jon W. Anderson4. The Pragmatics and Politics of Anthropological Collaboration on the North African Frontier Paul A. Silverstein5. Post-Cold War Politics of Middle East Anthropology: Insights from a Transitional Generation Confronting the War on Terror Lara Deeb and Jessica WinegarPart II. Subjectivities: Youth, Gender, Family and Tribe in the Middle East and North African Nation-State6. Anthropology of the Future: Arab Youth and the State of the State Suad Joseph7. The Memory Work of Anthropologists: Gendered Studies of Conflicts and the "Heroic Life" in Middle East and North Africa Sondra Hale8. Rejecting Authenticity in the Desert Landscapes of the Modern Middle East: Development Processes in the Jiddat il-Harasiis, Oman Dawn Chatty9. Notable Families and Capitalist Parasites in Egypt's Former Free Zone: Law, Trade, and Uncertainty Christine Hegel-CantarellaPart III: Anthropology of Religion and Secularism in the Middle East and North Africa 10. Will the Rational Religious Subject Please Stand Up? Muslim Subjects and the Analytics of Religion Sherine Hafez11. Defining and Enforcing Islam in Secular Turkey Kim Shively12. Sharia in Diaspora: Displacement, Exclusion and Anthropology of the Displaced Middle East Susanne Dahlgren13. A Place to Belong: Colonial Pasts, Modern Discourses, and Contraceptive Practices in Morocco Cortney L. HughesPart IV: Anthropology and New Media in the Virtual Middle East and North Africa 14. "Our Master's Call": Mass Media and the People in Morocco's 1975 Green March Emilio Spadola15. The Construction of Virtual Identities: On-line Tribalism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond Sebastian Maisel16. Youth, Peace, and New Media in the Middle East Charlotte Karagueuzian and Pamela Chrabieh BadineReferencesContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisAddresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledgeTrade Review[T]his volume is a valuable contribution to the general field of anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. . . . Recommended. * Choice *This volume is a good addition to the anthropological body of work on the region. * Social Anthropology *Spanning audiences of undergraduates, graduates and established researchers, this volume will be an extremely useful reference point for scholars of the MENA region, in anthropology and beyond. * African Studies Bulletin *The volume, including its comprehensive bibliography, will benefit students of Middle East studies looking to see how anthropology contributes to the study of the region. Anthropology students will find theoretical topics germane not only to the region but also to broader anthropological conversations. Readers will also enjoy the fine ethnography that drives these major theoretical trajectories in the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. * Review of Middle East Studies * Anthropology of the Middle East is a remarkable contribution to the field. * Anthropology of Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Power and Knowledge in the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Sherine Hafez and Susan SlyomovicsPart I. Knowledge Production in Middle East and North Africa Anthropology 1. State of the State of the Art Studies: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Susan Slyomovics2. Identity and Difference in the Middle East and North Africa: A Review Essay Seteney Shami and Nefissa Naguib3. Anthropology's Middle Eastern Prehistory: An Archaeology of Knowledge Jon W. Anderson4. The Pragmatics and Politics of Anthropological Collaboration on the North African Frontier Paul A. Silverstein5. Post-Cold War Politics of Middle East Anthropology: Insights from a Transitional Generation Confronting the War on Terror Lara Deeb and Jessica WinegarPart II. Subjectivities: Youth, Gender, Family and Tribe in the Middle East and North African Nation-State6. Anthropology of the Future: Arab Youth and the State of the State Suad Joseph7. The Memory Work of Anthropologists: Gendered Studies of Conflicts and the "Heroic Life" in Middle East and North Africa Sondra Hale8. Rejecting Authenticity in the Desert Landscapes of the Modern Middle East: Development Processes in the Jiddat il-Harasiis, Oman Dawn Chatty9. Notable Families and Capitalist Parasites in Egypt's Former Free Zone: Law, Trade, and Uncertainty Christine Hegel-CantarellaPart III: Anthropology of Religion and Secularism in the Middle East and North Africa 10. Will the Rational Religious Subject Please Stand Up? Muslim Subjects and the Analytics of Religion Sherine Hafez11. Defining and Enforcing Islam in Secular Turkey Kim Shively12. Sharia in Diaspora: Displacement, Exclusion and Anthropology of the Displaced Middle East Susanne Dahlgren13. A Place to Belong: Colonial Pasts, Modern Discourses, and Contraceptive Practices in Morocco Cortney L. HughesPart IV: Anthropology and New Media in the Virtual Middle East and North Africa 14. "Our Master's Call": Mass Media and the People in Morocco's 1975 Green March Emilio Spadola15. The Construction of Virtual Identities: On-line Tribalism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond Sebastian Maisel16. Youth, Peace, and New Media in the Middle East Charlotte Karagueuzian and Pamela Chrabieh BadineReferencesContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisShows how the film industry in Francophone West African countries played an important role in executing strategies of nation building during the transition from French rule to the early postcolonial periodTrade ReviewCinema and Development in West Africa achieves the important task of reminding readers that the economic structures of neocolonialism possessed deep tendrils that broadly impacted postcolonial life and politics. Moreover, it clarifies what the political stakes of African cinema were for colonists, nationalists and intellectuals. The descriptions of the hopes, aspirations and political agendas of the pioneering cohort of French West African cinéastes cogently presented by Genova will be of interest to specialists, with prose appropriate for advanced undergraduate classrooms. * Interventions *Focusing on film both as industry and aesthetic genre, the book demonstrates [cinemas] unique place in economic development and provides a comprehensive history of filmmaking in the region during the transition from colonies to sovereign nationhood. May 2014 * Journal of Pan African Studies *Genova . . . offers a brisk and instructive overview of the history of cinema in the former French colonies of West Africa . . . Genova's attention to the material conditions of cinematic production is salutory. . . . Recommended. * Choice *[T]his is a useful study of French West African cinema pioneers and their times. It illuminates the institutional and structural obstacles that stood between the filmmakers' vision of a new cinematic art and their intended audiences. It also highlights their resistance to pressure from colonial and postcolonial governments to put their artistic skills at the service of venal political regimes. As such, it will prove of value to historians and film scholars interested in this crucial period in the history of African cinema. * American Historical Review *Genova's book not only asserts a fundamental relationship between European colonial and African post-colonial cinema, it asserts that it is precisely because the first generation of African filmmakers knew and understood colonial cinema, and its place in colonial doctrine and practice that they sought to bring their revolutionary ideology and poetics to cinema. * International Journal of African Historical Studies *Overall, Cinema and Development in West Africa is a welcome addition to cinema scholarship. . . . [Genova's] historical approach illuminates the enduring importance of political and economic dynamics not yet fully explored in the study of African cinema. Genova's book is a useful contribution to the vast and growing field of African cinema. * Africa *6.3 Sept. 2014 * Journal of African Media Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Cinema as Art and Industry1. The Cinema Industrial Complex in French West Africa to the 1950s2. The Colonialist Regime of Representation, 1945-19603. West African Anti-Colonial Film Politics, 1950s-1960s4. The Post-Colonial African Regime of Representation5. The West African Cinema Industrial Complex, 1960s-1975Postscript: Francophone West African Cinema to the PresentNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisShows how the film industry in Francophone West African countries played an important role in executing strategies of nation building during the transition from French rule to the early postcolonial periodTrade ReviewCinema and Development in West Africa achieves the important task of reminding readers that the economic structures of neocolonialism possessed deep tendrils that broadly impacted postcolonial life and politics. Moreover, it clarifies what the political stakes of African cinema were for colonists, nationalists and intellectuals. The descriptions of the hopes, aspirations and political agendas of the pioneering cohort of French West African cinéastes cogently presented by Genova will be of interest to specialists, with prose appropriate for advanced undergraduate classrooms. * Interventions *Focusing on film both as industry and aesthetic genre, the book demonstrates [cinemas] unique place in economic development and provides a comprehensive history of filmmaking in the region during the transition from colonies to sovereign nationhood. May 2014 * Journal of Pan African Studies *Genova . . . offers a brisk and instructive overview of the history of cinema in the former French colonies of West Africa . . . Genova's attention to the material conditions of cinematic production is salutory. . . . Recommended. * Choice *[T]his is a useful study of French West African cinema pioneers and their times. It illuminates the institutional and structural obstacles that stood between the filmmakers' vision of a new cinematic art and their intended audiences. It also highlights their resistance to pressure from colonial and postcolonial governments to put their artistic skills at the service of venal political regimes. As such, it will prove of value to historians and film scholars interested in this crucial period in the history of African cinema. * American Historical Review *Genova's book not only asserts a fundamental relationship between European colonial and African post-colonial cinema, it asserts that it is precisely because the first generation of African filmmakers knew and understood colonial cinema, and its place in colonial doctrine and practice that they sought to bring their revolutionary ideology and poetics to cinema. * International Journal of African Historical Studies *Overall, Cinema and Development in West Africa is a welcome addition to cinema scholarship. . . . [Genova's] historical approach illuminates the enduring importance of political and economic dynamics not yet fully explored in the study of African cinema. Genova's book is a useful contribution to the vast and growing field of African cinema. * Africa *6.3 Sept. 2014 * Journal of African Media Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Cinema as Art and Industry1. The Cinema Industrial Complex in French West Africa to the 1950s2. The Colonialist Regime of Representation, 1945-19603. West African Anti-Colonial Film Politics, 1950s-1960s4. The Post-Colonial African Regime of Representation5. The West African Cinema Industrial Complex, 1960s-1975Postscript: Francophone West African Cinema to the PresentNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book is an innovative, important, and courageous addition to African and world history scholarship. . . . Africa's Past is a much-needed text for teaching African history. Smythe not only provides an excellent survey of the latest research on Africa's past, she also presents a concise and clear argument as to why this history is relevant today. * African Studies Review *Recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Why We Need African HistoryPart 1. The Long Durée1. Human Evolution and Becoming Human2. Agriculture in History3. Africans' Adaptions to Climate Change: Past and PresentPart 2. Cultural Differentiation4. Heterarchy and Hierarchy5. Cultural Diffusion6. MatrilinyPart 3. Globalization7. Colonialism and Development (with Heidi Frontani)8. Africa's Development Assistance (with Heidi Frontani)9. African Economics10. Failed States? The Successful Somalia

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis work should be of great interest to students, scholars, and a general audience interested in African visual culture. * African Arts *This well-written, meticulously researched study will be valuable to all who are interested in African arts. * Choice *Humor and Violence is an excellent book of art historical scholarship and a pleasure to read. * African Studies Review *Strother's expertise, notably, the "reading" of objects as texts is both highly compelling and thought-provoking, and ultimately, herein lies the book's strength. It is well written in accessible narrative style lavishly accompanied by color and black-and-white photographs, together with hand-drawn sketches. This book will no doubt find itself on the bookshelves of those interested in African art. * African Studies Quarterly * Humor and Violence's depth of research and radical interdisciplinarity is breathtaking. * The Art Bulletin *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPreface1. Introduction2. Warning! What do you see? A white man? Or an over-dressed one?3. New Commodities on the Loango Coast (1840-1880)4. Depictions of Human Trafficking on Loango Ivories in the 1880s5. Humor in the Hygiene of Power (ca. 1885-1915)6. By Congolese, for Congolese (1910s-40s) 7. The African Victim in the Congolese Imaginary (1950s-1997)Coda: Congolese Perspectives on Humor and RedemptionNotes BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review Farm Labor Struggles in Zimbabwe is an excellent ethnographic study of farmworkers in Zimbabwe and how they negotiated their belonging and carved out new livelihoods in the context of an agrarian revolution. This book should be on the shelf of anyone with an interest in land reform, farm labour, identity and belonging in Zimbabwe and beyond. * Africa *In this rich ethnography of the world of farm workers at the turn of the century, Rutherford skillfully demonstrates the entanglement of labor struggles with national politics. . . . On the whole, this work is a good contribution to agrarian studies, labor studies, and postcolonial politics in Africa. * African Studies Quarterly *Recommended. * Choice *This book makes a fundamental contribution to expanding our understanding of agrarian politics in Zimbabwe. * Journal of Southern African Studies *Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations Preface Introduction 1. "Oppression," Maraiti and Farm Worker Livelihoods: Shifting Grounds in the 1990s 2. The Traction of Rights, the Art of Politics: The Labor "War" at Upfumi 3. The Drama of Politics: Dissension, Suffering, and Violence 4. Politics and Precarious Livelihoods during the Time of Jambanja Conclusion: Representing Labor Struggles Appendix: Correspondence with the President's OfficeBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSlave Owners of West Africa is a welcome and timely addition to the historiography of slavery and abolition in West Africa. . . . It is a must-read book for anyone in the field. * African Studies Quarterly *Overall, this book makes an invaluable contribution to scholarship about an extremely complicated and sensitive subject by bringing to light the biographies of three individuals who represent a transformative turning point in African history. * African Studies Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction1. Amegashie Afeku of Keta: Priest and Political Advisor, Businessman and Slave Owner2. Nyaho Tamakloe of Anlo: Of Chieftaincy and Slavery, of Politics and the Personal3. Noah Yawo of Ho-Kpenoe: The Faith Journey of a Slave Owner4. Concluding ThoughtsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewConcise and insightful, Joanna Grabski's Art World City should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in contemporary art on the continent of Africa, its politics, its display, its economics, and in methods of how tounderstand and write about it in manner that treats the art of Dakar with the autonomy and agency it clearly expresses. * African Arts *Art World City is a beautiful book. The photographs, most of which are by the author, are stunning. * College Art Association Reviews * Art World City is a valuable addition to the anthropology of cities and of art worlds. It stretches and revises the notion of art world to include multiple scales, and illustrates how the city enables simultaneous engagement for artists with local, national, Pan-African, and global discourses and platforms. * City & Society *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction. Dakar's Art World City1. Making the City's Scene: Visibility, Exhibition Culture, and Mediatization 2. Mapping the Dak'Art Biennale in Dakar 3. A Place From Which to Speak: Artists' Studios as Infrastructure of Opportunity 4. From Street to Studio: Sourcing the Materials for Art from Urban Life 5. Picturing the City 6. Market Space and Urban Space: The Business of Selling Art in the City Epilogue. Reflections on Dakar's Art World City: Infrastructures, Vision-Oriented Subjectivities, and ImplicationsNotesBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A well-researched and highly readable account of one of World War II's most important 'turning point' battles... Harper provides a 'fresh look' from an unbiased perspective at this decisive battle just in time for its 75th anniversary." -Jerry D. Morelock, Senior Editor at HistoryNet.comTable of ContentsList of MapsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Eyes of the Whole World, Watching Anxiously1. Military Background2. The First Battle3. Drastic and Immediate Changes4. Alam Halfa5. Preparations and Plans6. Attempting the Break-In7. Slugging It Out8. Operation 'Supercharge'9. AssessmentBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAderinto has written a very persuasive book: not only did the omnipresence of weapons influence Nigerian colonial culture but it also created a gun society. This convincing argument reminds us that American political debates on firearm regulation and policing deserve to be historicized. * Social History *Aderinto has written a solid history. . . . the book is clearly written and contextualized while addressing sophisticated ideas and an array of specific examples. * African Studies Quarterly *Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria remains an important book and a welcome addition to the scholarship on firearms in Africa. Engagingly written and underpinned by meticulous research, it serves as a well-documented demonstration of the benefits that accrue from studying processes of technology transfer from a socio-cultural perspective and of the inventiveness with which, throughout their history, Africans have appropriated externally-introduced commodities for their own purposes. * Journal of African History *Aderinto's book makes an important contribution to the history of firearms in the twentieth century. . . . the meticulous study of the way in which guns gradually permeated everyday life is exemplary, pointing far beyond the Nigerian case. * H-Soz-Kult *By weaving the story of firearms into the social and political fabric of colonial Nigerian history, this study overturns much of the conventional understanding of when and how firearms came to occupy a central place in African history. The readership for this book extends beyond the confines of the history of firearms. Those interested in British colonialism generally and colonialism in West Africa specifically will find much to chew on in this imaginative treatment of the subject. * The American Historical Review *His [Aderinto] attention to archival detail is consistent and rigorous...There is hardly a current debate in the historiography of colonial rule in Nigeria to which Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria does not speak to...Aderinto's thoughtful analysis of what constitutes a 'gun society' and how such a thing is born speaks to political questions of our time—ones which go past the period of colonial rule and beyond the geographical confines of Nigeria * Journal of West African History *[A] solidly researched and well-presented study on a most interesting topic. The author is to be commended for this welcome contribution to African historical scholarship. * International Journal of African Historical Studies *The rich narratives within Saheed Aderinto's Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order immerse the reader into an in-depth account of the introduction and proliferation of guns in Nigerian society during the twentieth century. Weaving together oral history, newspaper reports, and archival data, Aderinto provides several sketches of daily life in Nigeria seen through the lens of gun use and gun ownership in the development of a gun society. ..Overall, this is a welcome addition to the fields of colonial history, African history, studies of political economy and material culture, and what has come to be known as "new military" history. * H-Africa *In this innovative book, Saheed Aderinto analyzes the diffusion and use of firearms during colonization in Nigeria...In Chapter 5, arguably the best of the book, Aderinto shows how the policies of the colonizer have, in fact, contributed to weakening the coercive apparatus of the Nigerian state. * Cahiers d'Études Africaines *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Firearms in Twentieth-Century Colonial Africa1. "This Destructive Implement of European Ingenuity": Firearms, the Atlantic World, and Technology Transfer in Precolonial Nigeria2. All Firearms Are Not Made Equal: Colonialism, Social Class, and the Emergence of a Nigerian Gun Society3. "A Dane Gun Is Useless without Gunpowder": The Political Economy of Nigeria's Most Popular Explosive4. "All Europeans in This Country Should Be Able to Fire a Rifle": Race, Leisure Shooting, and the Lethal Symbol of Imperial Domination5: "Bread and Bullet": Guns, Imperial Atrocity, and Public Disorder6: A Fearful Weapon: Violent Crime and Gun Accidents in Everyday Nigeria7: "You Are to Be Robbed of Your Guns": Firearms Regulation and the Politics of Rights and PrivilegeEpilogue: Guns and the Crisis of Development in Postcolonial NigeriaBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAderinto has written a very persuasive book: not only did the omnipresence of weapons influence Nigerian colonial culture but it also created a gun society. This convincing argument reminds us that American political debates on firearm regulation and policing deserve to be historicized. * Social History *Aderinto has written a solid history. . . . the book is clearly written and contextualized while addressing sophisticated ideas and an array of specific examples. * African Studies Quarterly *Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria remains an important book and a welcome addition to the scholarship on firearms in Africa. Engagingly written and underpinned by meticulous research, it serves as a well-documented demonstration of the benefits that accrue from studying processes of technology transfer from a socio-cultural perspective and of the inventiveness with which, throughout their history, Africans have appropriated externally-introduced commodities for their own purposes. * Journal of African History *Aderinto's book makes an important contribution to the history of firearms in the twentieth century. . . . the meticulous study of the way in which guns gradually permeated everyday life is exemplary, pointing far beyond the Nigerian case. * H-Soz-Kult *By weaving the story of firearms into the social and political fabric of colonial Nigerian history, this study overturns much of the conventional understanding of when and how firearms came to occupy a central place in African history. The readership for this book extends beyond the confines of the history of firearms. Those interested in British colonialism generally and colonialism in West Africa specifically will find much to chew on in this imaginative treatment of the subject. * The American Historical Review *His [Aderinto] attention to archival detail is consistent and rigorous...There is hardly a current debate in the historiography of colonial rule in Nigeria to which Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria does not speak to...Aderinto's thoughtful analysis of what constitutes a 'gun society' and how such a thing is born speaks to political questions of our time—ones which go past the period of colonial rule and beyond the geographical confines of Nigeria * Journal of West African History *[A] solidly researched and well-presented study on a most interesting topic. The author is to be commended for this welcome contribution to African historical scholarship. * International Journal of African Historical Studies *The rich narratives within Saheed Aderinto's Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order immerse the reader into an in-depth account of the introduction and proliferation of guns in Nigerian society during the twentieth century. Weaving together oral history, newspaper reports, and archival data, Aderinto provides several sketches of daily life in Nigeria seen through the lens of gun use and gun ownership in the development of a gun society. ..Overall, this is a welcome addition to the fields of colonial history, African history, studies of political economy and material culture, and what has come to be known as "new military" history. * H-Africa *In this innovative book, Saheed Aderinto analyzes the diffusion and use of firearms during colonization in Nigeria...In Chapter 5, arguably the best of the book, Aderinto shows how the policies of the colonizer have, in fact, contributed to weakening the coercive apparatus of the Nigerian state. * Cahiers d'Études Africaines *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Firearms in Twentieth-Century Colonial Africa1. "This Destructive Implement of European Ingenuity": Firearms, the Atlantic World, and Technology Transfer in Precolonial Nigeria2. All Firearms Are Not Made Equal: Colonialism, Social Class, and the Emergence of a Nigerian Gun Society3. "A Dane Gun Is Useless without Gunpowder": The Political Economy of Nigeria's Most Popular Explosive4. "All Europeans in This Country Should Be Able to Fire a Rifle": Race, Leisure Shooting, and the Lethal Symbol of Imperial Domination5: "Bread and Bullet": Guns, Imperial Atrocity, and Public Disorder6: A Fearful Weapon: Violent Crime and Gun Accidents in Everyday Nigeria7: "You Are to Be Robbed of Your Guns": Firearms Regulation and the Politics of Rights and PrivilegeEpilogue: Guns and the Crisis of Development in Postcolonial NigeriaBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWork, Social Status, and Gender in Post-Slavery Mauritania is a brilliantly written book employing elegant and accessible language. While it focuses primarily on Harāīn women's experiences in Kankossa, Mauritania, it provides important insights into the question of non-elites' accessibility to elite forms of Islam and related status. It thus makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on gender, social hierarchy, economics, Islam, slavery, and dress. Policymakers, scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students who are interested in global studies of slavery, gender, social hierarchy, and Islam will surely find the book worth reading.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsNote on Transliteration and LanguageIntroduction: I Will Make You My Servant: Social Status, Gender, and Work1. From Black to Green: Changing Political Economy and Social Status in Kankossa2. "We Work for Our Lives": Revaluing Femininity and Work in a Post-slavery Market3. Joking Market Women: Critiquing and Negotiating Gender Roles and Social Hierarchy4. Women's Market Strategies: Building Social Networks, Protecting Resources, and Managing Credit 5. Making People Bigger: Wedding Exchange and the Creation of Social Value6. Embodying and Performing Gender and Social Status through the Malafa (Mauritanian veil)Conclusion: Social Rank in the Neoliberal EraGlossaryBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisDrawing on insider interviews, journalists Maruf and Joseph recount the rise, fall, and resurgence of this overlooked terrorist organization.Trade ReviewFor military enthusiasts, Inside al-Shabaab has vivid descriptions of street-by-street fighting in Mogadishu as the extremists pushed the fragile Somali government to the edge of the sea. For those wondering how Somalia has never been able to shake off the threat, the book has piercing details of what still goes wrong both among Somalis and in the international community. * AP News *Featuring interviews with government officials, former al-Shabaab members, soldiers and numerous other sources, the authors leave no stone unturned in their quest to tell the story of just how al-Shabaab continues to operate and why it continues to attract young people. This is hugely informative painstakingly-researched book. * African Arguments *The book by Maruf and Joseph is a very readable, very informative and in passages thrilling account that provides partly unknown details for Somalia-specialists and a basis for reflection and comparison for counter-terrorism experts. Due to the style of writing, it is even accessible for interested non-specialists. The book is recommended strongly for thinking about and beyond the Somali setting. * African Affairs *Maruf and Josef, who are first-rate journalists, are to be congratulated on this work, which is tricky and somewhat dangerous. -- Kenneth Christie * ID: International Dialogue *Table of ContentsPart 1: Origins and Rise1. Jihad Arrives in Somalia2. The CIA, Warlords, and Ethiopia3. "The Real Jihad Has Just Started"4. Godane5. American Al-Shabaab6. Radical OrganizationPart 2: The Battle for Mogadishu7. "TFG IN GRAVE JEOPARDY"8. "We Want Anyone"9. Zenith and Stalemate10. The Ramadan Offensive 11. WithdrawalPart 3: On the Run12. Divisions and Purge13. The Road to Westgate14. No Place to HidePart 4: Resurgence15. Arresting the Decline16. The ISIS Incursion17. The Future of al-Shabab

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOverall, Africans in Exile provides an abundance of well-researched, engaging studies that complicate the notion of exile and push the boundaries of the archive in ways that will be particularly useful to scholars of colonial Africa.Overall, Africans in Exile provides an abundance of well-researched, engaging studies thatcomplicate the notion of exile and push the boundaries of the archive in ways that will be particularly useful to scholars of colonial Africa. * H-Africa *This book contributes significantly to African Studies as a field and will be essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand exile as a diverse yet defining feature of our age. -- Christian A Williams - University of the Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa * African Studies Review *Table of ContentsCONTENTSForeword: Holger Bernt HansenAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Nathan Riley Carpenter and Benjamin N. Lawrance, Reconstructing the Archive of Africans in Exile Part One: The Legal Worlds of Exile1. "Wayward Humours" and "Perverse Disputings" / Ruma Chopra2. From Bandits to Political Prisoners: Detention and Deportation on the Sierra Leone Frontier / Trina Leah Hogg3. The Path of Extinction: The Double Exile of Alfa Yaya and the Penal Regime in French Colonial Africa / Nathan Riley Carpenter4. Reforming State Violence in French West Africa: Relegation in the Epoch of Decolonization / Marie Rodet and Romain Tiquet5. A Kingdom in Check: Exile as a Strategy in the Sanwi Kingdom, C / Thaïs Gendry6. "As if I were in Prison" / Brett ShadlePart Two: Geographies of Exile7. In the City of Waiting: Education and Mozambican Liberation Exiles in Dar es Salaam, 1960-1975 / Joanna T. Tague8. Amilcar Cabral and the Bissau Revolution in Exile: Women and the Salvation of the Nationalist Organization in Guinea, 1959-1962 / Aliou Ly9. Brothers in the Bush: Exile, Refuge, and Citizenship on the Ghana-Togo Border, 1958-1966 / Kate Skinner10. A Cold War Geography: South African Anti-Apartheid Refuge and Exile in London, 1945-94 / Susan Dabney Pennybacker11. The French Trials of Cléophas Kamitatu / Meredith TerrettaPart Three: Remembering and Performing Exile12. Forced Labor and Migration in São Tomé and Príncipe / Marina Berthet13. Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba and the Poetics of Exile / Sana Camara14. The Legacy of Exile: Terrorism in and outside Africa from Osama bin Laden to Al-Shabaab / Kris Inman15. Reconstructing Slavery in Ohioan Exile: Mauritanian Refugees in the United States / E. Ann McDougall16. A Nation Abroad: Desire and Authenticity in Togolese Political Dissidence / Benjamin N. LawranceEpilogue: From Exile with Love / Baba Galleh JallowAfterword: Worlds and Words of Migration: Exile in African History / Emily S. BurrillNotes on ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is a highly valued contribution to the study of Middle Eastern politics for scholars and students. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is a highly valued contribution to the study of Middle Eastern politics for scholars and students. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMusoni has written an exciting book that challenges our notions of what borders on the African continent mean. * H-Africa *Francis Musoni's book Border Jumping and Migration Control in Southern Africa is an interesting and compelling read, mapping out the history of border jumping or "illegal migration" in Southern Africa. * African Studies Review *Overall this book is a good, effective read and a must for scholars of migration. It will make a timely contribution across the social sciences and humanities, providing new theoretical perspectives while challenging traditional notions of legality and illegality in cross border movements in Africa. -- Kalpana Hiralal - University of KwaZulu-Natal * AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW *Table of Contents PrefaceAcknowledgments List of Acronyms and AbbreviationsIntroduction: A Site of Contestations: The Zimbabwe-South Africa Border and Illegal[ized] Movements Across it1. Colonial Statecraft and the Rise of Border Jumping 2. Promoting Illegality: South Africa's Ban on "Tropical Natives"3. Border Jumping and the Politics of Labor4. Apartheid, African Liberation Struggles and the Securitization of Cross-Limpopo Mobility 5. Crossing the Boundary Fence: The Zimbabwe Crisis and the Surge in Border JumpingConclusion: The Past in the Present: Border Jumping as a Legacy of the European Partition of AfricaBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMusoni has written an exciting book that challenges our notions of what borders on the African continent mean. * H-Africa *Francis Musoni's book Border Jumping and Migration Control in Southern Africa is an interesting and compelling read, mapping out the history of border jumping or "illegal migration" in Southern Africa. * African Studies Review *Overall this book is a good, effective read and a must for scholars of migration. It will make a timely contribution across the social sciences and humanities, providing new theoretical perspectives while challenging traditional notions of legality and illegality in cross border movements in Africa. -- Kalpana Hiralal - University of KwaZulu-Natal * AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW *Table of Contents PrefaceAcknowledgments List of Acronyms and AbbreviationsIntroduction: A Site of Contestations: The Zimbabwe-South Africa Border and Illegal[ized] Movements Across it1. Colonial Statecraft and the Rise of Border Jumping 2. Promoting Illegality: South Africa's Ban on "Tropical Natives"3. Border Jumping and the Politics of Labor4. Apartheid, African Liberation Struggles and the Securitization of Cross-Limpopo Mobility 5. Crossing the Boundary Fence: The Zimbabwe Crisis and the Surge in Border JumpingConclusion: The Past in the Present: Border Jumping as a Legacy of the European Partition of AfricaBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa is one of the most fully realized biographies of a modern African politicalgure in recent years, and a striking portrayal not just of this fascinating and ultimately tragic states-man but of an entire political era on the continent. * New York Review of Books *This is an exemplary biography of an Africa president revered for his integrity and gift of inspired leadership. -- R. I. Rotberg, Harvard University * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism, 1949-19662. Education of a Revolutionary, 1966-19733. A Rising Star: Soldiers and the Political Left, 1973-19824. From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister, 1982-19835. The "Revolution of August 4" and the People's President6. "This Man Who Unsettles": Confronting the Neocolonial Order, 1983-19847. The Struggle for Unity, 1983-19848. "Daring to Invent the Future": Nation-Building and the Promise of Revolutionary Change, 1984-859. Politics is War and War is Politics: Sankara in the International Arena, 1984-198510. Revolutionary Duties and Perils, 1986-198711. No Turning Back: The Road to October 15, 1987ConclusionSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisSince its construction in the early 1960s, the hydroelectric Akosombo Dam across the Volta River has exemplified the possibilities and challenges of development in Ghana. Drawing upon a wealth of sources,A Dam for Africainvestigates contrasting stories about how this dam has transformed a West African nation, while providing a model for other African countries. The massive Akosombo Dam is the keystone of the Volta River Project that includes a large manmade lake 250 miles long, the VALCO aluminum smelter, new cities and towns, a deep-sea harbor, and an electrical grid. On the local level, Akosombo has meant access to electricity for people in urban and industrial areas across southern Ghana. For others, Akosombo inflicted tremendous social and environmental costs. The dam altered the ecology of the Lower Volta, displaced 80,000 people in the Volta Basin, and affected the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians. InA Dam for Africa, Stephan Miescher explores four intersectiTrade Review"In A Dam for Africa, Stephan Miescher explores the history of Akosombo Dam, its role as part of the broader Volta River Project, and its influence on national and pan-African visions for a postcolonial technological future. Miescher draws on a large body of previously underutilized archival sources, as well as extensive interviews with government officials and citizens across regions most directly impacted by the construction of the dam and the resulting resettlement that came in its wake"—Jennifer Hart, Wayne State University"A Dam for Africa is a stunningly rich examination of Ghana's Volta River Project, an ambitious infrastructural / development scheme that has played a central role in 20th century Ghanaian and African, history. At its core, the book probes the multiple meanings that the project's principle manifestation—the hydroelectric Akosombo Dam—had for Ghanaians, Africans, local bureaucrats, international governments, and transnational business interests from c. 1950 to 2010, a sixty-year period that stretches across not only the colonial / postcolonial divide, but several periods of ranging political ideologies, economic realities, and international transformations."—Nate Plageman, Wake Forest University"Based on meticulous archival research carried out across the globe and on countless interviews, A Dam for Africa engages themes as diverse as decolonization, gender, technology, and popular culture in this riveting account of the making of Ghana's Akosombo Dam. Miescher's rich, multiscalar analysis is as adept at reconstructing the Cold War geopolitics of aid and development that form the negotiated prehistory of the dam, as it is at recounting the personal stories of displacement, relocation, and disillusionment of ordinary women and men whose livelihoods and homes, burial grounds, and religious sites were washed away by the Volta Lake. Miescher's A Dam for Africa is quite simply a monumental work."—Jean Allman, Washington University in St. Louis"A Dam for Africa is a truly spectacular contribution to global debates about energy justice. Rather than eschewing the contradictions of sustainable development, Miescher explores them with tremendous sensitivity and subtlety. The result is a rich, complex, innovative history that changes the terms of scholarship across a wide range of fields, including African history, global environmental history, the history of technology, and infrastructure studies."—Gabrielle Hecht, Stanford University"This is a detailed and fascinating case study in the research field of international dam and hydropower plant construction."—Aurelia Ohlendorf, ConnectionsTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentList of AbbreviationsPrologueIntroductionPart I. The Volta River Project1. The Volta Project and the Promise of Modernization2. "Nkrumah's Baby": Realizing Akosombo within the Cold WarPart II. The Volta Aluminium Company3. Volta Aluminium Company: A U.S. Outpost in West Africa4. Working on VALCO's American IslandPart III. Settlements of Modernization5. "No One Should Be Worse Off": Resettlement6. Building the City of the FuturePart IV. Power Struggles7. Waiting for Light: Stories of Rural Electrification8. Electricity Politics, Droughts, Self-HelpEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndex

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