African history Books
MP-SYR Syracuse University P Emirate Egyptian Ethiopian
Book SynopsisIn October 1875, two months after the takeover of the Somali coastal town of Zeila, an Egyptian force numbering 1,200 soldiers departed from the city to occupy Harar, a prominent Muslim hub in the Horn of Africa. In Emirate, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Ben-Dror tells the story of Turco-Egyptian colonial ambitions and the processes that integrated Harar into the global system of commerce.
£30.56
John Wiley & Sons Why Alliances Fail
Book SynopsisIn Why Alliances Fail, Buehler explores the circumstances under which stable, enduring alliances are built to contest authoritarian regimes, marshaling evidence from coalitions between North Africa's Islamists and leftists.
£53.55
Facts On File Brief History Set 22Volumes
Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to the dramatic events, notable people, and special customs and traditions that have shaped many of the world's countries. Each engaging volume covers a specific country and offers a concise history of the struggles and triumphs of the peoples and cultures that have called that country home.
£808.50
University of Minnesota Press Lusophone Africa
Book SynopsisSituates the cultures of Portuguese-speaking Africa within the postcolonial, global era.Trade Review"Lusophone Africa is a pioneering, exceedingly well researched and well-documented study of important aspects of Lusophone African cultural expression in their postcolonial social and political contexts. Along with being a significant scholarly work, because of Fernando Arenas’ numerous visits to the Lusophone African countries, where he has met with many eminent musicians and singers, movie makers, and authors of literary works, this book is also a very captivating memoir.' —Russel G. Hamilton, Vanderbilt UniversityTable of ContentsContents Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction: Lusophone Africa Within the Global and the Postcolonial 1. African, Portuguese, and Brazilian Interconnections: The Lusophone Transatlantic Matrix 2. Cesária Évora and the Globalization of Cape Verdean Music 3. Lusophone Africa on Screen: After Utopia and Before the End of Hope 4. Angolan Literature: After Independence and Under the Shadow of War Conclusion Permissions Notes Works Cited Index
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press The Copyright Thing Doesnt Work Here
Book SynopsisThe intersection of Western intellectual property law and traditional knowledge in Africa.Trade Review"Boatema Boateng’s use of life histories to humanize discussions of law, policy, and the exigencies of modernity is as refreshing as the wide analytical net she casts to include the North American African diaspora and reflect upon key concerns such as cultural nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic." —Kwasi Konadu, City University of New York"This fine-grained historical and ethnographic inquiry into the social life of Ghanaian textiles is–quite simply and by several degrees of magnitude–the best study anywhere of how Western tropes of intellectual property fail to grasp the complexity of systems in which the traditional arts are practiced today. It tells a cautionary tale with urgent implications for IP scholarship, and it should be required reading for policy-makers in world capitals and at international organizations." —Peter Jaszi, American UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: Indexes of Culture and Power 1. The Tongue Does Not Rot: Authorship, Ancestors, and Cloth 2. The Women Don’t Know Anything! Gender, Cloth Production, and Appropriation 3. Your Face Doesn’t Go Anywhere: Cultural Production and Legal Subjectivity 4. We Run a Single Country: The Politics of Appropriation 5. This Work Cannot Be Rushed: Global Flows, Global Regulation Conclusion: Why Should the Copyright Thing Work Here? Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press Commemorating and Forgetting Challenges for the
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A worthwhile read for the general visitor to South Africa, and it provides a summary of the literature on memory and South African memoryscapes. Its main strength lies in setting out existing analyses in interesting juxtapositions."—African Affairs"This well-written, provocative study is accompanied by comprehensive references that contribute much to memory studies as well as to the study of the realpolitik of South Africa. Highly Recommended."—CHOICE"Murray’s book is a major contribution on this difficult, elusive topic and a useful complement to his own and others’ writings on the evolving relations between citizens and the built environment in postapartheid South Africa."—Buildings & Landscapes"The book will be a useful addition to a range of readers’ shelves but primarily for those from a humanities background recently coming to debates around South African nationhood, citizenship, identity, memory and landscape."—Transformation"The questions raised in this book reflect a fascinating on-going conversation in South Africa. As it wades through the tough terrain of memorialization, Commemorating and Forgetting mostly refuses to default to the easy analytic of statist and authoritarian narratives. Instead, Murray offers an engaging reflection on the relationship between space and time as sites of on-going struggles over change."—African Geographical ReviewTable of ContentsContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Memory and Amnesia after Apartheid1. The Power of Collective Memory2. White Lies: Myth-Making and Social Memory in the Service of White Minority Rule3. Facing Backward, Looking Forward: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting4. Collective Memory in Place: The Voortrekker Monument and the Hector Pieterson Memorial5. Haunted Heritage: Visual Display at District Six and Robben Island6. Makeshift Memorials: Marking Time with Vernacular Remembrance7. Textual Memories: Autobiographical Writing at a Time of UncertaintyEpilogue: History and HeritageAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press Bamako Sounds
Book Synopsis"Sponsored by the Quadrant Global Cultures group ... and by the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota."Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: A Sense of Urban Africa1. Representing Bamako2. Artistiya3. Ethics and Aesthetics4. A Pious Poetics of Place5. Money Trouble6. Afropolitan PatriotismConclusion: An Africanist’s QueryAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press Repainting the Walls of Lunda Information
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Repainting the Walls of Lunda reimagines how we write histories of post-colonial Africa, encouraging us to pay close attention to the material legacies of coloniality and modernization processes, and offering us a much-needed look at the complex entanglements of media with colonial/postcolonial and cold war narratives."—Elizabeth Harney, University of Toronto"Collier's book is of particular interest to art historians, historians, media scholars, and cultural theorists for its conceptual framing, applied methodological approaches, and interpretative analysis. Collier offers new conceptual and methodological strategies for situating contemporary African art within longer histories of colonization and decolonization."—H-Net Reviews"In addition to telling a fascinating story, Collier’s book will no doubt furnish scholars from a variety of areas with substantial food for thought, if not concrete models for approaching their own research."—Análise Social"A unique insight into the limits of postcolonial escape from colonial structures of inequality and appropriations."—Journal of Asian and African Studies"Collier debunks the developmental model that underpins media theory and modernist teleologies, habitually framing ideas of the medium along a narrative of innovation and obsolescence that is driven by technology and markets."—Oxford Art JournalTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. Diamang as Apparatus: The Production of Painted Walls of Lunda in 19532. The Myth of Analog Africa: The Transition to Information Colonialism3. Rebouco: Postindependence Art and Angolan Socialism4. “Rescue and Visibility”: The Digitization of Painted Walls of Lunda and Postwar Angolan Art ConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£61.20
University of Minnesota Press Repainting the Walls of Lunda Information
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Repainting the Walls of Lunda reimagines how we write histories of post-colonial Africa, encouraging us to pay close attention to the material legacies of coloniality and modernization processes, and offering us a much-needed look at the complex entanglements of media with colonial/postcolonial and cold war narratives."—Elizabeth Harney, University of Toronto"Collier's book is of particular interest to art historians, historians, media scholars, and cultural theorists for its conceptual framing, applied methodological approaches, and interpretative analysis. Collier offers new conceptual and methodological strategies for situating contemporary African art within longer histories of colonization and decolonization."—H-Net Reviews"In addition to telling a fascinating story, Collier’s book will no doubt furnish scholars from a variety of areas with substantial food for thought, if not concrete models for approaching their own research."—Análise Social"A unique insight into the limits of postcolonial escape from colonial structures of inequality and appropriations."—Journal of Asian and African Studies"Collier debunks the developmental model that underpins media theory and modernist teleologies, habitually framing ideas of the medium along a narrative of innovation and obsolescence that is driven by technology and markets."—Oxford Art JournalTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. Diamang as Apparatus: The Production of Painted Walls of Lunda in 19532. The Myth of Analog Africa: The Transition to Information Colonialism3. Rebouco: Postindependence Art and Angolan Socialism4. “Rescue and Visibility”: The Digitization of Painted Walls of Lunda and Postwar Angolan Art ConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£19.79
The University of Alabama Press Now Is the Time to Collect
Book SynopsisA narrative microhistory of the Field Museum of Natural History's groundbreaking expedition to hunt and preserve rare African animal specimens for its collection before it went extinct due to modern progress and natural selection, a common view among natural historians as the 1800s came to a close.
£87.55
The University of Alabama Press Black Soldiers of the Queen The Natal Native
Book SynopsisBlack Africans made up more than half of the British army that invaded Zululand in January of 1879 and went on to fight the storied battles of Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift, and Ulundi. This book presents an account of Britain's black allies in the Anglo-Zulu War.Trade ReviewIn addition to providing an account from the contingent's perspective of NNC participation in the epic battle of Isandlwana, Thompson has recounted their service over the whole scope of the war.... His account is based on a rich selection of contemporary primary sources: diaries, journals, letters, memoirs, government documents. This extensive research has enabled the author to conclude that the NNC was indispensable to the British victory in the Zulu War. - Journal of Military History
£26.96
LUP - University of Georgia Press Repurposed Rebels Postwar Rebel Networks in Liberia
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£66.98
University of Georgia Press We the Young Fighters Pop Culture Terror and War
Book SynopsisThoroughly researched and accessibly written, We the Young Fighters probes terror-based warfare and how Tupac, Rambo, and - especially - Bob Marley wove their way into the fabric of alienation, resistance, and hope in Sierra Leone.Trade ReviewThis book will have a place on our planet. Tupac, Bob Marley, and Rambo had a huge influence on young people, whether or not they were soldiers. Whoever reads this book will never be the same." - Emmanuel Jal, recording artist, actor, peace activist, and author of War Child: A Child Soldier's Story"A palpable reminder of how the restless youth of Sierra Leone and many other parts of Africa can refashion global popular culture to challenge state repression. The call for a meaningful and transformative response to this governance challenge remains urgent and relevant." - Ismail Rashid, history professor, Vassar College"Sierra Leone’s civil war has often generated more heat than light, with shock at reports of gang rape, amputation, and drug-fueled viciousness drowning out analysis. In this remarkable account, Sommers resists sensationalism and skirts stereotype, retaining compassion for those swept up in the horror. By focusing on three Western icons who served as inspirational role models for the youngsters who perpetrated the worst of the violence—Rambo, Marley, and Tupac—he gets under the skin of Sierra Leone’s dysfunctional society and conflict dynamics in a way few have equaled." - Michela Wrong, author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad"This is an unexpected, revelatory, and powerful book. It brings together a deep knowledge of the African continent, the conditions that produce war, and a deep commitment to relating experience of the civil war in Sierra Leone by those who experienced it firsthand. It forces the reader to grapple with hard truths about the export of violence through music and entertainment. It requires the reader to grapple with the complexities of youth alienation and violence. It requires us to look for the unexpected. Once I started to read We the Young Fighters, I could not put it down." - Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Regents Professor University of Minnesota Law School, UN Special Rapporteur Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights"A great book. Sommers has written an enthralling cultural history of civil war in Sierra Leone, focusing on the young fighters and how they draw upon transatlantic popular culture to make sense of the world and their exclusion from its circuits of power. He allows us to make sense of the carnival of violence unleashed as a resistance script of modernity and challenges politicians and development practitioners to take young people seriously." - Alex de Waal, executive director, World Peace Foundation; research professor, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and author of The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, War, and the Business of Power"We the Young Fighters is a compelling story of what drove violent conflict in Sierra Leone, weaving in how drugs and pop culture helped sustain terror practices during the war. The book focuses on the significance of national governance and how states can alienate their expanding youth populations and increase prospects for violence and conflict. It illuminates the lessons we still need to learn from Sierra Leone’s conflict, including the critical need to broaden diplomacy and security reforms. Most important, this book highlights how to harness the energy of youth for building sustainable peace." - Elizabeth (Liz) Hume, executive director, Alliance for Peacebuilding"We the Young Fighters is published just over twenty years after the end of the vicious Sierra Leone civil war. Marc Sommers eloquently reexamines the drivers of the conflict, focusing on alienated female and male youth and pop culture. Sommers employs an instructive perspective, treating states as adversaries and charting how some youths are radicalized, recruited, and mobilized into armed groups. This book seeks to provide learning for mitigating contemporary African conflicts. A must-read for scholars, policy makers, and humanitarian workers." - Alex Vines OBE, director, Africa Programme, Chatham House, and assistant professor, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University"Recognizing the importance of music and cinema in young people’s lives, this riveting book illuminates the world of Sierra Leonean youth during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Sommers deftly shows how youth were moved by popular culture and appropriated it in seeking justice and social transformation. The lyrics of Marley and Tupac, together with the images of Rambo, inspired marginalized youth to become child soldiers who dreamt of social equity yet were also capable of horrific atrocities. I hugely enjoyed reading We the Young Fighters. It's a gem." - Michael Wessells, professor, Program on Forced Migration and Health, Columbia University, author of Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection"Strongly informed by many interviews, this rich and interesting book shines a light on musical and cinematic influences in Sierra Leone’s war. It shows, for example, how Tupac Shakur’s music was important to a variety of rebel and rogue soldier groups, and how his music—in songs such as 'Only God Can Judge Me'—were used by abusive groups to motivate and legitimize their attacks." - David Keen, professor of conflict studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, author of Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone"Marc Sommers’s insightful book takes young Sierra Leoneans’ perspectives, frustrations, and desires for dignity seriously. In doing so, this work not only deepens our understanding of Sierra Leone’s devastating civil war but also points the way toward a greater appreciation for the powerful intersection of pop culture and political action that is only growing more complex and important in the digital age." - Michelle Gavin, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, and former U.S. ambassador to Botswana"In We the Young Fighters, Marc Sommers offers an important intervention on the influence of cultural production across contexts, particularly in war-affected zones where narratives of resistance and freedom are all too easily understood in binaries. Sommers's carefully woven stories of how international pop culture became an instrument of youth resistance, violence, and post-war adaptation in Sierra Leone are compelling. We the Young Fighters is a must-read for those seeking to understand the complex dynamics of youth involvement in armed conflict." - 'Funmi Olonisakin, vice president (international, engagement, and service) and professor of security, leadership, and development, King’s College London, author of Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL
£35.72
Ohio University Press Willing Migrants Soninke Labor Diasporas
Book SynopsisThe first major study of the Soninke labor migration within Africa and to France, Willing Migrants is based upon critical analysis of French precolonial and colonial records and oral interviews with Soninke migrants.Trade Review“This book speaks to those interested in labor migrations, to those interested in the origins of contemporary migrants in France, as well as to Africanists in general who are hungry for a well-researched monograph that shakes up current assumptions.”
£23.39
Ohio University Press West African Challenge to Empire Culture and
Book SynopsisWest African Challenge to Empire examines the anticolonial war in the Volta and Bani region in 1915–16. It was the largest challenge that the French ever faced in their West African colonial empire, and one of the largest armed oppositions to colonialism anywhere in Africa.Trade Review“A must-read for any scholar interested in the military and social history of colonial rule in Africa.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“This is only one of many historical studies written by anthropologists in recent years, but it is surely one of the best.” * The International History Review *“This book is an outstanding example of how two scholars from the distinct disciplines of history and anthropology can join talents to produce an excellent study, one that adequately combines dense narratives with insightful theories … [It] presents us with not only a dense political narrative about men and motives, but also a cultural history, with the magic and supernatural dimensions of war.” * Historian *
£56.10
Ohio University Press West African Challenge to Empire
Book SynopsisWest African Challenge to Empire examines the anticolonial war in the Volta and Bani region in 191516. It was the largest challenge that the French ever faced in their West African colonial empire, and one of the largest armed oppositions to colonialism anywhere in Africa.Trade Review“A must-read for any scholar interested in the military and social history of colonial rule in Africa.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“This is only one of many historical studies written by anthropologists in recent years, but it is surely one of the best.” * The International History Review *“This book is an outstanding example of how two scholars from the distinct disciplines of history and anthropology can join talents to produce an excellent study, one that adequately combines dense narratives with insightful theories … [It] presents us with not only a dense political narrative about men and motives, but also a cultural history, with the magic and supernatural dimensions of war.” * Historian *
£26.09
Ohio University Press Environmental Justice in South Africa
Book SynopsisEnvironmental Justice in South Africa provides a systematic overview of the first ten years of postapartheid environmental politics. Written by leading activists and academics in the field, this edited collection offers the first critical perspective of environmental justice theory and practice in South Africa.
£56.10
Ohio University Press Environmental Justice in South Africa
Book SynopsisEnvironmental Justice in South Africa provides a systematic overview of the first ten years of postapartheid environmental politics. Written by leading activists and academics in the field, this edited collection offers the first critical perspective of environmental justice theory and practice in South Africa.
£23.39
MJ - Ohio University Press Creating Germans Abroad Cultural Policies and
Book SynopsisWhen World War I brought an end to German colonial rule in Namibia, much of the German population stayed on. The German community, which had managed to deal with colonial administration, faced new challenges when the region became a South African mandate under the League of Nations in 1919.
£56.10
Ohio University Press Creating Germans Abroad Cultural Policies and
Book SynopsisWhen World War I brought an end to German colonial rule in Namibia, much of the German population stayed on. The German community, which had managed to deal with colonial administration, faced new challenges when the region became a South African mandate under the League of Nations in 1919.
£20.69
Ohio University Press The Forgers Tale
Book SynopsisBetween 1905 and 1939 a conspicuously tall white man with a shock of red hair, dressed in a silk shirt and white linen trousers, could be seen on the streets of Onitsha, in Eastern Nigeria. How was it possible for an unconventional, boy-loving Englishman to gain a social status among the local populace enjoyed by few other Europeans in colonial West Africa?In The Forger's Tale: The Search for Odeziaku Stephanie Newell charts the story of the English novelist and poet John Moray Stuart-Young (18811939) as he traveled from the slums of Manchester to West Africa in order to escape the homophobic prejudices of late-Victorian society. Leaving behind a criminal record for forgery and embezzlement and his notoriety as a spirit rapper, Stuart-Young found a new identity as a wealthy palm oil trader and a celebrated author, known to Nigerians as Odeziaku.In this fascinating biographical account, Newell draws on queer theory, African gender debates, and new imperial history to openTrade Review“In Stuart-Young, literary scholar Stephanie Newell has found a fascinating subject for a study of race, class, and sexuality in West Africa and Britain between the 1880s and 1930s.... The intriguing narrative at its center will appeal to a wide range of readers, while specialists in the history of colonialism, West Africa, and sexuality should find this study provocative and insightful.” * American Historical Review *“Newell is to be commended for directing interest towards one of the most fascinating personalities of colonial Nigeria.” * Journal of African History *“Beyond being a good read and telling a fascinating story, this book makes significant new contributions to Queer, African, and British imperial history.” * African Studies Review *“An innovative analysis of a very intriguing figure, The Forger's Tale is beautifully and accessibly written. It will appeal to scholars with specialized research interests in imperial history, sexuality, and Nigeria.”“Newell casts a meticulous eye over a wide range of sources, including oral evidence from Igbo informants, to garner insight into colonial and Igbo attitudes toward non-normative sexuality. The Forger’s Tale challenges both monolithic conceptions of colonial masculinity and presumptions about heterosexual, timelessly homophobic “African sexuality.’”“The Forger's Tale is an unusual but rattling good tale of Empire, meticulously researched, truly enlightening, and very funny.”
£23.39
MJ - Ohio University Press Triumph of the Expert
Book SynopsisTriumph of the Expert is a history of British colonial policy and thinking and its contribution to the emergence of rural development and environmental policies in the late colonial and postcolonial period.Trade Review“Hodge’s meticulous historical analysis and extraordinary synthesis of the relevant case literature are a remarkable feat.... a smart, well-written, and accessible book....” * American Historical Review *“Hodge brings to light the role that Britain’s imperial networks of applied scientific and technical experts played in shaping development throughout the twentieth century...with its emphases on agrarian concerns, technical solutions, and state intervention..... A pathbreaking historical study with important implications for understanding the current nature of international development.” * Journal of British Studies *“Huyendo de tópicos y determinismos, este libro constituye una minuciosa descripción de la lógica de dominación cultural y económica aplicada por Occidente. Se entienden mejor la racionalidad de sus políticas, sus contradiciones y los problemas que hoy en día repiten muchos organismos internacionales…. En cualquier caso su lectura es obligada par quienes trabajan en la idea de una globalizacion para el siglo XXI con grandes paralelismos con el proceso colonial .” “This book provides a detailed description of the rationale behind the cultural and economic domination by the West while avoiding clichés and determinism. It fully analyses the logic of the policies often followed by many international agencies today, with all their inherent problems and contradictions…. This should be required reading for whoever is struggling with the understanding the issues of globalization in the 21st century with its direct parallels to the colonial process.”“Hodge provides an excellent analysis of the historical roots of the contradictions and problems associated with development.... Hodge’s important and insightful book will generate considerable rethinking of many assumptions usually taken for granted about the globalization project.” * International Review of History *“Hodge’s study is a timely reminder that the modern discourses of development emerged out of particular histories, especially the efforts of colonial authorities and experts to manage the social, economic, and ecological crises of the late colonial world.” * Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History *“Hodge’s book builds upon the path-breaking work on colonial African development by Helen Tilley, Richard Grove, Monica van Beusekom, and others, but he has drawn together a fuller and synthetic account of the British colonial agrarian project and the bumpy road along which the expert came to seize control of development in the post-1945 period.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *
£56.10
Ohio University Press Colonial Meltdown
Book SynopsisHistorians of colonial Africa have largely regarded the decade of the Great Depression as a period of intense exploitation and colonial inactivity.Trade Review“Colonial Meltdown is a must read for scholars and students interested in Northern Nigeria, the Depression, taxation, and the colonial state.…In very accessible prose, supported by meticulous research, (Ochonu) argues convincingly that the collapsing produce prices and dwindling profits of the Great Depression created a distinctive moment in the history of colonial exploitation in Northern Nigeria….” * Journal of African History *“(Colonial Meltdown) presents a persuasive argument that the paralysis of the colonial authorities in the face of unprecedented devastation in Northern Nigerian villages and communities resulted in the undermining of colonial paternalism.” * The American Historical Review *”Colonial Meltdown presents an informative, well-argued and largely persuasive historical narrative that invites further, comparative investigation of the impact of the great depression on colonial economies, as well as offering a detailed case study which Nigeria scholars will find particularly valuable for its focus on a relatively understudied area.” * Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History *“This book is well researched, elegantly written, and bound to reshape the debate on British imperialism in Africa.” * author of Work and Control in a Peasant Economy *“Ochonu argues eloquently that the Depression was a period of manifest colonial failure which saw the withdrawal of many rural Nigerians from the global economy.” * The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History *“Altogether, (Colonial Meltdown) is a solid historical analysis with deep insight into the contradictions of the colonial enterprise in nonemirate colonial Northern Nigeria. More important, it provides important signposts for understanding some of the structural antecedents to Nigeria’s problematic postcolonial developmental state.” * African Studies Review *“While previous African historians such as Fred Cooper have revealed the integral efforts of African workers’ resistance during the interwar period, as part and parcel of the decline of the colonial era, Ochonu shifts the timeline to argue that scholars may need to look earlier to the Depression years to seek the catalysts of later anti-colonial struggles.” * Alpata: A Journal of History *“Ochonu has written a widely ranging and richly detailed history of how colonial officials and Northern Nigerians responded to the economic and political challenges posed by the Great Depression.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *
£25.19
Ohio University Press Spear of the Nation Umkhonto weSizwe
Book SynopsisUmkhonto weSizwe, Spear of the Nation, was arguably the last of the great liberation armies of the twentieth century—but it never got to “march triumphant into Pretoria.” MK—as it was known—was the armed wing of the African National Congress, South Africa’s liberation movement, that challenged the South African apartheid government.Trade Review“Cherry … examines the ideological, moral, and strategic debates within the ANC and MK that led to its successes, failures, and remarkable restraint in comparison with those of other liberation armies…. Drawing on interviews with former MK members and testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Cherry analyzes the MK within the broader context of proxies in the war between communism and capitalism as it played out in Vietnam, Africa, and South America.” * Booklist *
£12.99
Ohio University Press South Africas Struggle for Human Rights
Book SynopsisThe human rights movement in South Africa’s transition to a postapartheid democracy has been widely celebrated as a triumph for global human rights. It was a key aspect of the political transition, often referred to as a miracle, which brought majority rule and democracy to South Africa.
£12.99
Ohio University Press Epidemics The Story of South Africas Five Most
Book SynopsisThis is the first history of epidemics in South Africa, lethal episodes that shaped this society over three centuries. Focusing on five devastating diseases between 1713 and today—smallpox, bubonic plague, “Spanish influenza,” polio, and HIV/AIDS—the book probes their origins, their catastrophic courses, and their consequences.Trade Review“Such a book is overdue…(It) is precisely written, accessible, eminently readable, and, as I have found out, can be effectively deployed as an effective teaching tool.”
£12.99
Ohio University Press The History of Blood Transfusion in SubSaharan
Book SynopsisThis first extensive study of the practice of blood transfusion in Africa traces the history of one of the most important therapies in modern medicine from the period of colonial rule to independence and the AIDS epidemic.Trade Review“This is an impressive work.… The reader feels comfortable in the hands of a mature and competent expert who has followed the history of blood transfusion for years, and has indeed already contributed important articles on the subject.”“Motivated by the desire to contextualize the relationship between HIV/AIDS and blood transfusion in sub-Saharan Africa, Schneider seeks to historicize the policies and practices of giving and receiving blood in this region…. This book provides a thought-provoking introductory platform that will stimulate further studies.” * African Affairs *“With numerous charts and graphs, images and analysis of recruitment posters, and detailed national case studies (featuring the Belgian Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Senegal), this initial examination of blood transfusion in sub-Saharan Africa over the twentieth century is an important contribution to the history of global health as it intersects with the African past.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“The impact of transfusions in colonial Africa on the emergence of AIDS has not been told. Schneider’s book skillfully fills this void with his firsthand investigations of the history of transfusions in Africa. The book provides a new and critical framework for understanding how transfusing blood may have catapulted simian viruses from remote places in Africa to pandemic AIDS status.”“This impressive historical account renders an authoritative account of the the establishment of Transfusion Medicine in sub-Saharan Africa. This book should prove to be a valuable resource for many years to all those interested in the ongoing history of this specialty.”“This book is a background-primer that can give continuing guidance to changes still taking place in sub-Saharan Africa. Since blood transfusion is a part of so many other medical activities it is also valuable in providing understanding of how those [activities] developed in Africa.”
£25.19
Ohio University Press San Rock Art
Book SynopsisSan rock paintings, scattered over the range of southern Africa, are considered by many to be the very earliest examples of representational art. There are as many as 15,000 known rock art sites, created over the course of thousands of years up until the nineteenth century. There are possibly just as many still awaiting discovery.TakingTrade Review“This little book is exceptional in that the subject is so clearly explained. It was wonderful to learn that [South African former] President Thabo Mbeki incorporated a San rock painting into our new national coat of arms.… I recommend you dip into this pocket book. You won’t be disappointed.” * Citizen, “Citi Vibe,” South Africa *“(San Rock Art) serves as an excellent introduction to the possibilities of studying the subject and would be useful in many sorts of classes. Professionals will also find the volume useful for both general concepts and clear and concise summaries of many of the key points of Lewis-Williams’ interpretive efforts. In summary, this book is a good read. I recommend it for all levels of those interested in the subject of rock art.” * Azania: Archeological Research in Africa *“Perhaps only the eloquent and succinct prose of J.D. Lewis-Williams could present, examine and explain the ethnology and artistry of the San culture in such a quintessential manner…. From explanations of the 'terpsichorean exercises' and the all-important 'trance-dance' to how the San person, shaman or not, can use a painting to go through the 'veil' to the spirit world beyond, the author reveals a world of ethnographic and artistic potency.” * Bradshaw Foundation Book Review *“Making sense of these fascinating artifacts as a novice requires the assistance of an informed guide and Lewis-Williams’ credentials speak for themselves.… This deceptively ordinary-looking book is a fascinating read and will spur you on your travels to view as many San paintings as you can at close-hand, fuelled by your newfound knowledge of the complexity of the beliefs, rituals, and practices of the first inhabitants of South Africa.” * Sunday Magazine, South Africa *
£12.99
Ohio University Press Govan Mbeki
Book SynopsisGovan Mbeki (1910–2001) was a core leader of the African National Congress, the Communist Party, and the armed wing of the ANC during the struggle against apartheid. Known as a hard-liner, Mbeki was a prolific writer and combined in a rare way the attributes of intellectual and activist, political theorist and practitioner.Trade Review“[This] thoughtful biography…examines the ways in which [Govan Mbeki] placed greater emphasis than many other cadres on the political importance of rural people…This is a very accomplished monograph. Neither sentimental nor vague and dispassionate, Bundy distils Mbeki's legacy as that of writer, teacher and revolutionary, albeit one who had participated in a ‘modest revolution.’” * Journal of African History *
£12.99
Ohio University Press Violent Intermediaries African Soldiers Conquest
Book SynopsisThe askari, African soldiers recruited in the 1890s to fill the ranks of the German East African colonial army, occupy a unique space at the intersection of East African history, German colonial history, and military history.LaudedTrade Review“[Violent Intermediaries] offers a new and well researched perspective drawing on the insights of the social history of recent decades…[Moyd] has produced a fine social history of African soldiers as intermediaries in the everyday life of colonialism in German East Africa.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“Moyd’s insistence on viewing askari not only as soldiers but also as men with social lives and aspirations that transcended their professional activities in maboma, on expeditions, and on the battlefield is refreshing and insightful.…Violent Intermediaries is a highly readable monograph offering an empathetic view on the stigmatized African soldiers of the colonial army in German East Africa.” * H-Net *“Overcoming methodological challenges posed by translation, memory, and frankly a scarcity of documents disclosing askari voices, Moyd sought to understand these soldiers on their own terms. As a result she explores the everyday life of the askari, from within their households to their official and unofficial roles within colonial society, and she recovers a past widely misunderstood due to German praise and Tanzanian denunciation for their loyalty to the Schutztruppe (the official name of the German colonial army).… Violent Intermediaries, like other books in Ohio University Press’s New African Histories series edited by Jean Allman, Allen Isaacman, and Derek R. Peterson, expands the boundaries of African history in new and exciting directions.” * Canadian Journal of History *“[Moyd] furthers our understanding of everyday colonialism by fleshing out the lives of individuals who were simultaneously agents of colonialism and objects of colonial rule. …She uses [limited sources] thoroughly to provide rich and insightful details about this underexplored dimension of colonialism.” * American Historical Review *“[Moyd] manages to reconcile the German inflated myth of the ‘loyal askari’ and the post-colonial Tanzanian emphasis [on] the askari as brutal agents of colonialism, by showing the many nuances in between—tracing the contradictory accounts to reveal simple human behavior.” * history.transnational *“I expect Violent Intermediaries to become the definitive English-language history of the East African Schutztruppe [the colonial forces of Germany]. Michelle Moyd has bravely and productively ventured into the realm of conventional military history to draw social and cultural conclusions from the ways that the Schutztruppe fought. This attention to how African soldiers carried out their primary mission is largely missing from most of the recent scholarship on colonial militaries.”“Michelle Moyd brings to life the world of the East African askari in this imaginative and original study of their role in shaping German colonialism in Africa in the early twentieth century. Readable, well argued, and carefully researched, Violent Intermediaries is an important study that will enrich the work of scholars in many areas.”“Michelle Moyd offers a uniquely empathetic reading of colonial sources and a new narrative voice as she uncovers the histories of … actors that have been mythologized, misused, and misunderstood for more than a century.”Table of Contents* List of Illustrations * Preface * Acknowledgments * A Note on Spellings, Currency, and Measurements * Introduction: Reconstructing Askari Realities * Chapter 1: Becoming Askari Narratives of Early Schutztruppe Recruitment in Context * Chapter 2: Making Askari Ways of War Military Training and Socialization * Chapter 3: The Askari Way of War * Chapter 4: Station Life * Chapter 5: Askari as Agents of Everyday Colonialism * Conclusion: Making Askari Myths * Chronology * Notes * Glossary * Bibliography * Index
£25.19
Ohio University Press The Historical Ecology of Malaria in Ethiopia
Book SynopsisMalaria is an infectious disease like no other: it is a dynamic force of nature and Africa’s most deadly and debilitating malady. James C. McCann tells the story of malaria in human, narrative terms and explains the history and ecology of the disease through the science of landscape change. All malaria is local.Trade Review“This is one of the most important books written on Africa in the last ten years—indeed, in any ten years. If this book does not win a prize, then there is truly no justice.…A superb topic, handled here by an accomplished historian at the peak of his powers…The epilogue is simply magnificent. Sparse, almost curt, it makes the case with blinding clarity…The past lives with us. The future is about adaptability, not progress.”“McCann’s work is truly a must-read for experts in many fields, from public health, agriculture, and history, to politics and development. This book is a brilliant demonstration of the deeply local and highly adaptable nature of disease and mortality, and the ways in which the historical ecology of disease effects household decision-making and trends in food production and economic development on a national scale.” * Focus on the Horn *“This thorough country history … explores malaria’s etiology, effects, and the challenges of minimizing, if not controlling, its impact. Historian McCann draws on decades of Ethiopian field experience and familiarity with its historical sources. … Fascinating anecdotes reveal local disease understandings, often blaming malign spirits (hence the subtitle). …Malaria severely challenges public health, but this study will aid the struggle. Summing Up: Recommended.” * CHOICE *“Amid renewed calls for global malaria eradication, historian James C. McCann delivers a timely reminder of the complexity and resilience of malaria. His argument concerns interdisciplinarity, humility and scale. … McCann’s unique accomplishment is the incorporation of a sophisticated and complex biomedical hypothesis of modern malaria epidemiology into a nuanced historical and cultural narrative. … It will be useful for students of public health and its history.” * Social History of Medicine *“McCann writes history with an ethnographic sensibility and a solid grasp of the science. His delightful turn of phrase and accessible writing style make this work an enjoyable read for specialists and non-specialists alike. … [He] eloquently describes the social, economic and political disturbances central to malaria’s success, beautifully explains the distinctiveness of this infectious disease, and sensitively links science with illness narratives. …Readers will be left not just knowing more about Ethiopia and malaria, but with an analytical framework with which to enquire about malaria in other locations as well.” * Human Ecology *
£56.10
Ohio University Press Authentically African Arts and the Transnational
Book SynopsisTogether, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ) in the Congo have defined and marketed Congolese art and culture.Trade Review“This masterful study of Belgian and Congolese collecting and exhibitions of African arts, and the murky heritage politics so implied, offers insights for understanding colonial and postcolonial histories of representation anywhere in the world.”“Authentically African successfully shows how colonial tensions between politics and creativity left their imprint on colonial as well as on postcolonial Congo… this book remains a necessary introduction to some key chapters in the rich and complex entrance of arts premiers into world cultural histories.” * American Historical Review *“This is an important book that fills a gap in our knowledge about museums in this geographical area as well as our understanding of the role of political ideologies, a topic which has been well covered in South Africa, for example, but not as much by scholars in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. … An impressive analysis.” * Museum Anthropology Review *“This well-informed book is the result of a careful inquiry carried out ‘on the spot’ in Congo, Belgium, and North America. … Authentically African successfully shows how colonial tensions between politics and creativity left their imprint on colonial as well as on postcolonial Congo. … This book remains a necessary introduction to some key chapters in the rich and complex entrance of arts premiers into world cultural histories.” * American Historical Review *“[An] impressive exploration of how and postcolonial powers in former Zaire utilized ‘cultural guardianship’ to justify their political legitimacy and to establish cultural and political economies nationally and internationally.” * African Studies Quarterly *“Authentically African is an impressively researched study of material culture and its institutions in the construction of Congolese cultural and political projects. Van Beurden’s fascinating examination of objects and collections in cultural and political economies makes a significant contribution to several bodies of scholarship, from those focused on material culture, heritage, and identity politics to those concerned with African cultural institutions as part of the global landscape.”
£999.99
Ohio University Press Ken SaroWiwa
Book SynopsisA penetrating, accessible portrait of the activist whose execution galvanized the world.Trade Review“In Ken Saro-Wiwa, Doron and Falola provide a masterful narrative of the struggles of Nigeria’s famous environmental and ethnic minority rights campaigner and writer. This history of a complex personality that successfully seized the national and global stage in the 1990s, also brilliantly explores the unfinished ramifications of his untimely death.”“A brilliant new biography by Roy Doron and Toyin Falola places Saro-Wiwa’s activism into the broader context of his life, his experiences in public administration and the arts, and his persistent and nuanced view of the role that ethnicity and identity should play in post-colonial Nigeria. The book is an accessible and affordable read that speaks to anyone interested in Nigerian history and politics.” * Washington Post online *“This short, highly enjoyable book provides a comprehensive perspective on this Renaissance man by situating him in the broader historical context of Nigeria’s turbulent 20th century. A great introduction to Saro-Wiwa and his world for anyone with an interest in African studies, literary criticism, environmental history, or case studies in international or human rights law. Summing up: Highly recommended.” * CHOICE *“This book is slim but powerful—which should be a great asset to Afri- canists and human-rights activists, who have made it their duty worldwide to document the inhumane treatment of writers and political activists like Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight doomed colleagues.” * Africa Today *
£12.99
Ohio University Press The Art of Life in South Africa
Book SynopsisFrom 1952 to 1981, South Africa's apartheid government ran an art school for the training of African art teachers at Indaleni, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal. The Art of Life in South Africa is the story of the students, teachers, art, and politics that circulated through a small school, housed in a remote former mission station. It is the story of a community that made its way through the travails of white supremacist South Africa and demonstrates how the art students and teachers made together became the art of their lives.Daniel Magaziner radically reframes apartheid-era South African history. Against the dominant narrative of apartheid oppression and black resistance, as well as recent scholarship that explores violence, criminality, and the hopeless entanglements of the apartheid state, this book focuses instead on a small group's efforts to fashion more fulfilling lives for its members and their community through the ironic medium of the apartheid-era school.There Trade Review“Daniel Magaziner tells a profoundly human story of the institutional and social constraints under which African artists operated and the different ways in which they sought to find a way to produce beauty in the midst of oppression.”“Ultimately, Magaziner reflects that approaching the history of complex and compromised communities like Ndaleni through the overarching nationalist frame of the South African liberation struggle does not allow enough space for difficult, nuanced, and fragile realities to surface.…Magaziner's carefully wrought study provides insights into the impetuses and negotiations, features and weaknesses, of a highly constrained, imbalanced, and charged setting.…The extended nature of the study does require a little stamina, but its achievement in being theoretically rich and sensitively argued more than sustains the reader. Its liberal incorporation of photographs (over a hundred), mostly of former students' artwork, not only vivifies the study, but is a valuable act of archival recuperation.” * Canadian Journal of History *“The Art of Life in South Africa is a richly suggestive and moving contribution to South African intellectual history. Weaving in a highly imaginative way the two concepts of life and art, Magaziner opens unique pathways for research in the historical sociology of the object-worlds South Africans invented, created and inhabited during the long twentieth-century. Written with extraordinary clarity and precision, this book will appeal to anyone curious about new trends in the historiography of culture.”“The Art of Life is an impressive work that is sure to become a basic text in the field of African cultural history. Ndaleni will no longer be forgotten.” * African Studies Review *“The Art of Life in South Africa contributes to a global conversation about ‘art’ and ‘craft’at the same time as it challenges neat distinctions between center and periphery, metropole and margins. Art education provides rich terrain through which the entangled relations of modernity, subjectivity, and materiality can be explored. This book is as important for students of global modernism as it is for scholars of South African art, history and politics.”“The Art of Life in South Africa is beautifully rendered, well researched, and tells an important, scarcely told story. Combining in exciting ways intellectual, cultural, and social historical approaches, Magaziner offers a meditation on what happens if we examine a past that is shaped by broader historical forces (in this case apartheid) but that cannot be reduced to them.”“In this beautifully written book, Dan Magaziner opens a small story to reveal expansive, deep questions. The Art of Life in South Africa offers an unexpected and transcendent intellectual history of African self-making and art practice.”“The Art of Life in South Africa is an astonishing book, powerfully constructed, intricately researched, and gorgeously written. From the focused study of individual lives and practices that flourished in and around the Ndaleni art school, Magaziner extends the possibilities of a more democratic form of art history.”
£70.55
Ohio University Press The Art of Life in South Africa
Book SynopsisFrom 1952 to 1981, South Africa's apartheid government ran an art school for the training of African art teachers at Indaleni, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal. The Art of Life in South Africa is the story of the students, teachers, art, and politics that circulated through a small school, housed in a remote former mission station. It is the story of a community that made its way through the travails of white supremacist South Africa and demonstrates how the art students and teachers made together became the art of their lives.Daniel Magaziner radically reframes apartheid-era South African history. Against the dominant narrative of apartheid oppression and black resistance, as well as recent scholarship that explores violence, criminality, and the hopeless entanglements of the apartheid state, this book focuses instead on a small group's efforts to fashion more fulfilling lives for its members and their community through the ironic medium of the apartheid-era school.There Trade Review“Daniel Magaziner tells a profoundly human story of the institutional and social constraints under which African artists operated and the different ways in which they sought to find a way to produce beauty in the midst of oppression.”“Ultimately, Magaziner reflects that approaching the history of complex and compromised communities like Ndaleni through the overarching nationalist frame of the South African liberation struggle does not allow enough space for difficult, nuanced, and fragile realities to surface.…Magaziner's carefully wrought study provides insights into the impetuses and negotiations, features and weaknesses, of a highly constrained, imbalanced, and charged setting.…The extended nature of the study does require a little stamina, but its achievement in being theoretically rich and sensitively argued more than sustains the reader. Its liberal incorporation of photographs (over a hundred), mostly of former students' artwork, not only vivifies the study, but is a valuable act of archival recuperation.” * Canadian Journal of History *“The Art of Life in South Africa is a richly suggestive and moving contribution to South African intellectual history. Weaving in a highly imaginative way the two concepts of life and art, Magaziner opens unique pathways for research in the historical sociology of the object-worlds South Africans invented, created and inhabited during the long twentieth-century. Written with extraordinary clarity and precision, this book will appeal to anyone curious about new trends in the historiography of culture.”“The Art of Life is an impressive work that is sure to become a basic text in the field of African cultural history. Ndaleni will no longer be forgotten.” * African Studies Review *“The Art of Life in South Africa contributes to a global conversation about ‘art’ and ‘craft’at the same time as it challenges neat distinctions between center and periphery, metropole and margins. Art education provides rich terrain through which the entangled relations of modernity, subjectivity, and materiality can be explored. This book is as important for students of global modernism as it is for scholars of South African art, history and politics.”“The Art of Life in South Africa is beautifully rendered, well researched, and tells an important, scarcely told story. Combining in exciting ways intellectual, cultural, and social historical approaches, Magaziner offers a meditation on what happens if we examine a past that is shaped by broader historical forces (in this case apartheid) but that cannot be reduced to them.”“In this beautifully written book, Dan Magaziner opens a small story to reveal expansive, deep questions. The Art of Life in South Africa offers an unexpected and transcendent intellectual history of African self-making and art practice.”“The Art of Life in South Africa is an astonishing book, powerfully constructed, intricately researched, and gorgeously written. From the focused study of individual lives and practices that flourished in and around the Ndaleni art school, Magaziner extends the possibilities of a more democratic form of art history.”
£999.99
Ohio University Press Feeding Globalization Madagascar and the
Book SynopsisBetween 1600 and 1800, the promise of fresh food attracted more than seven hundred English, French, and Dutch vessels to Madagascar. Throughout this period, European ships spent months at sea in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, but until now scholars have not fully examined how crews were fed during these long voyages.Trade Review“Jane Hooper’s groundbreaking study of Madagascar’s provisioning trade offers a fascinating new perspective on Indian Ocean exchanges, European long-distance trade, Madagascan engagement with global markets, and the transformation of the island in the early modern era.”“This important book highlights Madagascar’s key role in the Indian Ocean’s maritime and commercial circuits as a provider of foodstuffs and provisions.”“Jane Hooper sheds light on a crucial yet unexplored aspect of early modern globalization.”"Feeding Globalization is an engaging introduction to the complexities of Indian Ocean trade and an important reminder of the importance of food and fresh water to global development.“ * American Historical Review *“This is a welcome addition to the Anglophone historical scholarship on Madagascar, most of which focuses on the nineteenth century. Hooper meticulously reconstructs a convincing picture of how the steady demands of European shipping and colonies for food supplies stimulated the emergence of state formation in western and eastern Madagascar.”“Hooper has done a fine job by pushing the history of Madagascar’s economic ties with the exterior into territory not adequately explored (or explored at all) by other historians.”
£62.90
Ohio University Press Football and Colonialism
Book SynopsisIn articles for the newspaper O Brado Africano in the mid-1950s, poet and journalist José Craveirinha described the ways in which the Mozambican football players in the suburbs of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) adapted the European sport to their own expressive ends.Trade Review“Domingos’s study goes far beyond similar ones of football in African and Latin American settings. He aims to put the bodies of men in Lourenço Marques at the center of a cultural and social history of the colonial city, and manages this with powerful insight and a fair degree of grace. This is a magnificent history of football in a colonial city in southern Africa.”“More than just a sports history, Football and Colonialism employs soccer as a prism through which to trace the shifting interactions between Africans and Europeans in Lourenço Marques. As Domingos effortlessly oscillates between colonial policy and indigenous response, he brings the city alive, and at the heart of the text are the African players themselves.”“[Following the Ball and Football and Colonialism] convincingly demonstrate that the histories of Mozambican football and of African migrants in Portugal have value and deserve to be told in their own right. … Individually and together, these impressive books greatly deepen our knowledge and understanding of football and society in Africa and Europe. I highly recommend them to specialists and general readers interested in sport, African Studies, and globalization.” * Idrottsforum *Nuno Domingos’ Football and Colonialism offers amazing insight into football in colonial Mozambique and represents a very important addition to the academic literature on football. As a well-researched work that integrates sociological and anthropological theory seamlessly into the historical narrative, it will also be of immense value to students of African history, colonial history, urban studies, as well as to those with an interest in popular culture and sports more generally. * African Studies Quarterly *
£26.09
Ohio University Press Promise and Despair
Book SynopsisThe struggle for freedom in South Africa goes back a long way. In 1909, a remarkable interracial delegation of South Africans traveled to London to lobby for a non-racialized constitution and franchise for all. Among their allies was Mahatma Gandhi, who later encapsulated lessons from the experience in his most important book, Hind Swaraj.Trade Review“With violent protests in Pretoria and Cape Town against top-down imposition by the ANC of unwanted election candidates, this superb new book … could not be more timely.… The characters, backgrounds and qualities of the main actors from that time come to life with an almost contemporary vividness, indicating the deep structure of South Africa’s polity and the enduring relevance of this seminal period in its history.” * Mail and Guardian (South Africa) *“A well-written, interesting, and lively account, with vivid descriptions and fascinating information.”
£23.39
Ohio University Press The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Book SynopsisIn 1995, South Africa’s new government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a lynchpin of the country’s journey forward from apartheid.
£12.99
Ohio University Press Living with Nkrumahism Nation State and
Book SynopsisIn the 1950s, Ghana, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party, drew the world’s attention as anticolonial activists, intellectuals, and politicians looked to it as a model for Africa’s postcolonial future. Nkrumah was a visionary, a statesman, and one of the key makers of contemporary Africa.Trade Review“Sterling…A much-needed work on this important period in both Ghana’s history and the history of sub-Saharan Africa…Though some of the earlier works on Nkrumah and the demise of his rule are overly critical, and argue that Nkrumah’s ideology and the socialism of the CPP were at odds with what the people wanted, Ahlman’s work is critical yet measured.…[He] bridges the gap between the overly harsh studies of the late 1960s and 1970s and the more recent sentiments of Ghanaians who believe that Nkrumahism managed to bring some benefits to Ghana.” * H-Net *“Ahlman’s trenchant and insightful book will be of considerable interest to scholars of citizenship, decolonization, early post-independence nationalism, and pan-Africanism. Ahlman’s work is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate audiences.” * African Studies Review *“The time is ripe for histories like this one that re-examine the classic moment of early postcolonial nationalism. In clear, accessible style, Ahlman sets up this account as a story that needs to be told without the baggage of a later postcolonial pessimism overdetermining the narrative. Further, he meets this challenge.”“This well-crafted study of Ghanaian life under the rule of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) makes an important contribution to our understanding of a critical period in Ghana’s and Africa’s history.…Ahlman clearly succeeds in his goal of illuminating the ‘aspirations and tensions involved in living with Nkrumahism’ and reconstructing a critical period in Ghana’s history ‘without the weight of later decades.’” * Journal of Modern African Studies *“Living with Nkrumahism is an ambitious and successful book. It should be read by anyone interested in Nkrumah’s Ghana and African national developments in the 1950s and 1960s.” * Journal of Social History *
£56.10
Ohio University Press Amy Biehls Last Home
Book SynopsisGranted unrestricted access to the Biehl family’s papers, Steven Gish brings Amy and the Foundation to life in ways that have eluded previous authors. He is the first to place Biehl’s story in its full historical context, while also presenting a gripping portrait of this remarkable young woman and the aftermath of her death across two continents.Trade Review“Gish’s fine book tells Biehl’s story warmly and well and also provides an uplifting account of how her parents dealt with her loss and have since engaged in an elaborate reconciliation with South Africa and their daughter’s assailants.…Summing up: Essential.” * CHOICE *“If ever there was a book for our time, this is it. Amy Biehl’s story is painful and inspirational, and Steven D. Gish has captured both in his extraordinary recounting of Biehl's journey. While some may struggle to fathom why this young white scholar chose to walk alongside South Africans on their often-dangerous path to democracy, Gish’s masterful book provides answers in her own words and those of others who understood her passion and her commitment. Amy Biehl’s Last Home is a book that can and should inspire us all.”“I knew both the author and the subject of this book from a Stanford class in African politics. As a black South African, I had considerable anti-white grievance, but Steve and Amy in their life choices laid bare the dangers of my single story, even more so when Amy died so tragically in my hometown. As race relations seem to be unraveling on both sides of the Atlantic, this impressive work of scholarship about the entangled histories of South Africa and the United States comes at an opportune time.”“Readers interested in reconciliation processes and justice movements will find this study illuminating and moving.” * Publishers Weekly *“Amy Biehl’s Last Home will, for all its accessibility to a general readership, be of value to scholars of the South African transition, of the impact of South African events on the United States, and of what Gish calls ‘forgiveness studies.’”“Gish brings new insights to the story of Amy Biehl, her death, and the family's coming to peace with the tragedy … His knowledge as an historian of modern South Africa gives nuance and depth to this inspiring story of commitment, sacrifice, and forgiveness.”“Steven Gish has written a remarkable account of Amy Biehl’s life, death, and what happened subsequently as her killers were brought to trial and her parents established a foundation in her name devoted to reconciliation and forgiveness. Deftly probing the controversies that erupted in South Africa after her death and the work of the foundation, Gish sensitively plumbs the pathos that is at the heart of the story. There were passages where I was brought to tears.”
£22.79
Ohio University Press Emergent Masculinities
Book SynopsisIn Emergent Masculinities, Ndubueze L. Mbah argues that the Bight of Biafra region's Atlanticizationor the interaction between regional processes and Atlantic forces such as the slave trade, colonialism, and Christianizationbetween 1750 and 1920 transformed gender into the primary mode of social differentiation in the region. He incorporates over 250 oral narratives of men and women across a range of social roles and professions with material culture practices, performance traditions, slave ship data, colonial records, and more to reveal how Africans channeled the socioeconomic forces of the Atlantic world through their local ideologies and practices. The gendered struggles over the means of social reproduction conditioned the Bight of Biafra region's participation in Atlantic systems of production and exchange, and defined the demography of the region's forced diaspora. By looking at male and female constructions of masculinity and sexuality as major indexes of social change, EmergentTrade Review“Emergent Masculinities transforms our understanding of the role of gender in a particular region of precolonial Africa and deepens our knowledge of the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonialization on Igbo and neighboring societies. Its ramifications extend beyond the Bight of Biafra to vast areas on both sides of the Atlantic. The book constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the political, economic and social dynamics that shaped the Atlantic world during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a must-read—and a must-have—for scholars of Africa and the Atlantic world and for college and university libraries.” * Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines *“In a timely and necessary contribution to our understanding of the gendered threads of connection between West African communities and trans-Atlantic processes, Mbah delivers a fine-grained reading of transformations in social practice and cultural meaning among the Ohafia-Igbo people over two centuries. He thus complicates how we use gender to understand power and social meaning in broader African history and challenges presumptions about the general contours of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.”“[Offers] offers theoretical sophistication, rich textual analysis, and extensive empirical research…. Emergent Masculinities is both interdisciplinary and transnational. It illustrates the author’s facility with anthropological debates, gender theory, and literary theory, along with Atlantic and Caribbean history. Given its breath, this book should be read by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic as one model for integrating Africa into Atlantic history.” * Journal of African History *“A fascinating book … [a] major work of historical scholarship." * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“Clearly written and rigorously researched, Emergent Masculinities should stand the test of time, not just because of the timelessness of the ideas espoused but because of the brilliant way it is presented. It should shape how new studies can examine masculinities both from local and Atlantic perspectives, and from the significant agency of indigenous institutions of power.” * Journal of Modern African Studies *
£56.10
Ohio University Press Emergent Masculinities
Book SynopsisAtlanticization—or interaction between regional processes and Atlantic forces such as the slave trade and Christianization—from 1750 to 1920 transformed gender into a primary mode of social differentiation in the Bight of Biafra. Mbah examines this process to fill a major gap in our understanding of gender’s role in precolonial Africa.Trade Review“Emergent Masculinities transforms our understanding of the role of gender in a particular region of precolonial Africa and deepens our knowledge of the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonialization on Igbo and neighboring societies. Its ramifications extend beyond the Bight of Biafra to vast areas on both sides of the Atlantic. The book constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the political, economic and social dynamics that shaped the Atlantic world during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a must-read—and a must-have—for scholars of Africa and the Atlantic world and for college and university libraries.” * Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines *“In a timely and necessary contribution to our understanding of the gendered threads of connection between West African communities and trans-Atlantic processes, Mbah delivers a fine-grained reading of transformations in social practice and cultural meaning among the Ohafia-Igbo people over two centuries. He thus complicates how we use gender to understand power and social meaning in broader African history and challenges presumptions about the general contours of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.”“[Offers] offers theoretical sophistication, rich textual analysis, and extensive empirical research…. Emergent Masculinities is both interdisciplinary and transnational. It illustrates the author’s facility with anthropological debates, gender theory, and literary theory, along with Atlantic and Caribbean history. Given its breath, this book should be read by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic as one model for integrating Africa into Atlantic history.” * Journal of African History *“A fascinating book … [a] major work of historical scholarship." * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“Clearly written and rigorously researched, Emergent Masculinities should stand the test of time, not just because of the timelessness of the ideas espoused but because of the brilliant way it is presented. It should shape how new studies can examine masculinities both from local and Atlantic perspectives, and from the significant agency of indigenous institutions of power.” * Journal of Modern African Studies *
£25.19
Ohio University Press Ambivalent
Book SynopsisGoing beyond photography as an isolated medium to engage larger questions and interlocking forms of expression and historical analysis, Ambivalent gathers a new generation of scholars based on the continent to offer an expansive frame for thinking about questions of photography and visibility in Africa. The volume presents African relationships with photographyand with visibility more generallyin ways that engage and disrupt the easy categories and genres that have characterized the field to date. Contributors pose new questions concerning the instability of the identity photograph in South Africa; ethnographic photographs as potential history; humanitarian discourse from the perspective of photographic survivors of atrocity photojournalism; the nuanced passage from studio to screen in postcolonial digital portraiture; and the burgeoning visual activism in West Africa.As the contributors show, photography is itself a historical subject: it involves arrangement, financingTrade Review“Ambivalent develops a powerful and coherent set of arguments about the inherent ambiguities of photographs and photographic interpretations, in both colonial and post-colonial settings. These arguments are especially impressive in the ways in which they both draw on ‘classic’ photographic theory and engage with contemporary debates in the field of African visual studies, unsettling received wisdoms about African histories, governance, and ‘modern’ personhood.”“Scholars interested in further understanding the ways in which photography can be used as a historical source will be inspired and motivated by the diversity of approaches within this book. While this volume is not necessarily a handbook for beginning scholars, its significance, nonetheless, lies in its critical approach and in the new questions it raises regarding the theorization of visibility, photography, and African History.” * H/Soz/Kult *
£62.90
Ohio University Press Ambivalent
Book SynopsisAmbivalent makes photography an engaging and important subject of historical investigation. Contributors bring photography into conversation with orality, travel writing, ritual, psychoanalysis, and politics, with new approaches to questions of race, time, and postcolonial and decolonial histories.Trade Review“Ambivalent develops a powerful and coherent set of arguments about the inherent ambiguities of photographs and photographic interpretations, in both colonial and post-colonial settings. These arguments are especially impressive in the ways in which they both draw on ‘classic’ photographic theory and engage with contemporary debates in the field of African visual studies, unsettling received wisdoms about African histories, governance, and ‘modern’ personhood.”“Scholars interested in further understanding the ways in which photography can be used as a historical source will be inspired and motivated by the diversity of approaches within this book. While this volume is not necessarily a handbook for beginning scholars, its significance, nonetheless, lies in its critical approach and in the new questions it raises regarding the theorization of visibility, photography, and African History.” * H/Soz/Kult *
£26.09
Ohio University Press Seeing Like a Citizen Decolonization Development
Book SynopsisIn focusing on rural Kenyans as they actively sought access to aid, Moskowitz offers new insights into the texture of political life in the decolonizing and early postcolonial world. Her account complicates our understanding of Kenyan experiences of independence, and the meaning and form of development.Trade Review“Expertly researched, superbly written…. Smashing the boundaries between the colonial and independence periods, Seeing Like a Citizen is a fascinating and much-needed exploration of the complex and shifting ways that rural African communities experienced development and understood citizenship…. [A] benchmark study.” * Journal of African History *“Impeccably researched and fluently written, Seeing Like a Citizen is the work of a skilled and diligent historian. It is a welcome and timely reorientation of the historiography of decolonizing Kenya away from some familiar themes. It is a fitting addition to the illustrious New African Histories series.”"This book represents the best of African history. In telling history ‘from below’, Moskowitz has managed to write a social history of Kenya in the independence and post-independence periods that also draws from and gives great insight into political, environmental, economic, and gender history. The ambition of the book is vast, and it cogently ties together oral history interviews with an institutional history of World Bank and international development agency projects, government ministry efforts, changing crop cultivation patterns, the shifting roles of women in agricultural production, and the history of price controls, among others. That Moskowitz pulls this all off in a coherent narrative that moves along crisply is a tremendous accomplishment, especially for a first book. * Journal of Contemporary History *“Well-researched and impeccably written…. [A] powerful contribution to the discussion on decolonization and development in the early postcolonial world. It will be of interest to any scholar interested in deepening their knowledge of development, statecraft, and citizenship.” * H-Africa, H-Net Reviews *
£56.10
Ohio University Press Militarizing Marriage West African Soldiers
Book SynopsisBy prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.Trade Review“A groundbreaking work of scholarship [that] contributes to a wide range of literatures. These include feminist scholarship on gender and militarism in Africa, the extensive historiography on African colonial militaries, and the historical literature of women’s roles in Western European armies.… Not only a significant and sophisticated contribution to the historical literature on the tirailleurs sénégalais and other African colonial armies but also to the growing literature on gender and militarism in Africa. Due to its temporal, geographic, and thematic scope, it will be of interest to scholars of African, global, and military history.”“This book’s invaluable contribution is the demonstration that the sexuality and conjugality of women, particularly African women, were instrumental to global French imperial conquest.” * Journal of African History *“Erudite and compelling…. positively sparkles with historical insight … Militarizing Marriage is an essential read.” * H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews *“A massive contribution to scholarship…. I recommend anyone interested in African history, colonial history, military history, or gender studies to read this book and assign it to students. It will contribute a great deal to understanding how we write history and its complex relations with current politics.” * H-France *“Militarizing Marriage’s focus on African soldiers’ conjugal unions, households, and trans-imperial sexual relationships adds exciting new dimensions to the historiography of colonial militaries and their roles in imperial conquest, occupation, as well as in the world wars.”“An original, significant contribution to the field of African history, Zimmerman’s thoroughly researched and insightful study on French colonial marital traditions discusses how the conjugal relationships between West African tirailleurs sénégalais soldiers and local women over Africa, Europe, and parts of Asia—and their resulting mixed-race children—represented a challenge to the French colonial racial hierarchy”
£59.40
Ohio University Press Anxiety in and about Africa
Book SynopsisThis addition to the Cambridge Centre of African Studies Series presents multidisciplinary essays that demonstrate how individual and collective anxieties can unsettle dominant historical narratives, shape contemporary discourse, and appear across material culture.Trade Review“Using ‘anxiety’ as the organizing rubric, this collective examination of affect, emotion, and concern across Africa, geographically and temporally, delves into fascinating disciplinary endeavors and disparate approaches. Although ‘anxiety’ is deliberately not defined strictly by the editors, and the contributors employ their own, different takes on what is anxiety inducing (and what is inferred by being anxiety provoking), this volume contains valuable essays about historical periods or behavioral thresholds that may be labeled as sources of anxiety…. Recommended.” * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii I n t roduct ion States of Anxiety in Africa Perspectives, Approaches, and Potential Yola na Pringle and Andrea Mariko Grant 1 PART I: Anxious Spaces One: Misapprehensions. Outlaws and Anxiety in Southern Africa’s Archaeological Past (Rach el King) Two: Between the Anxiogenic and the Soothing. Settlers’ Engagements with Africans in Dance in Colonial Africa, 1920s–30s (Cécile Feza Bushidi) Three: Epidemics and Anxiety in Saint-Louis-du-Sénégal, from the Mid-Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century (Kalala Ngala mulume) Part II: Unsettling Na rratives Four: Anxiety over Masculinity. Gendered and Sexual Struggles in Mwanga II’s Buganda, 1884–97 (Naka nyike B. Musisi) Five: No End to the Trouble. Decolonization Anxieties and the Evacuation of White Settlers from Kenya, 1963–64 (Will Jacks on and Harry Firth-Jones) Six: Competing Development “Visions”? State Anxieties and Church Closures in Rwanda (Andrea Mariko Grant) Part III: Alternative Temporalities Seven: “Right Now, I Don’t Know What the Future Might Bring”. Hope, Anxiety, and Despair in the Burundian Crisis (Simon Turner) Eight: “Obuganda Buladde". Power, Anxiety, and Calm in Postcolonial Buganda (Jonathon L. Earle) Contributors Index
£31.50
