New Books In African Studies

The protection of African wildlife enjoys the support of large numbers of individuals and institutions throughout the world. In Wildlife between Empire and Nation in Twentieth Century Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Jeff Schauer explains how this global attention to African wildlife evolved from late nineteenth century to the present. By tracing a complex web of ideas, organizations and practices that developed in East and Central Africa during the era of British colonialism; Schauer shows that the history of modern conservationist movements is entangled with the development of administrative systems, increased militarization and violence, nationalist and anti-nationalist agendas and the evolution of science. In other words, “wildlife is never neutral.” The book makes a compelling argument for a more critical and deliberate engagement with ideas about wildlife and conservation. Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia is Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University. She specializes in modern intellectual

Jeremy Black, the prolific professor of history at Exeter University, has published A Brief History of the Mediterranean (Little Brown, 2020), to offer readers an overview of this sphere from pre-history to the present day. Taking in the importance of geography, civilizational change and cultural representations, Black moves between disciplines to offer readers a compelling handbook to a region rich in historical significance. Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

The story of freedom and all of its ambiguities begins with intimate acts steeped in power. It is shaped by the peculiar oppressions faced by African women and women of African descent. And it pivots on the self-conscious choices black women made to retain control over their bodies and selves, their loved ones, and their futures. Slavery's rise in the Americas was institutional, carnal, and reproductive. The intimacy of bondage whet the appetites of slaveowners, traders, and colonial officials with fantasies of domination that trickled into every social relationship—husband and wife, sovereign and subject, master and laborer. Intimacy—corporeal, carnal, quotidian—tied slaves to slaveowners, women of African descent and their children to European and African men. In Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), Jessica Marie Johnson explores the nature of these complicated intimate and kinship ties and how they were used by black women to const

Hideaki Suzuki’s book Slave Trade Profiteers in the Western Indian Ocean: Suppression and Resistance in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) provides an insightful perspective to the growing scholarship on Indian Ocean slavery by shifting focus onto those who profited from the slave trade. He examines the ways in which slave traders interacted with and resisted the British suppression campaign in the nineteenth-century western Indian Ocean. By focusing on the transporters, buyers, sellers, and users of slaves in the region, the book traces the many links between slave trafficking and other types of trade. Drawing upon first-person slave accounts, travelogues, and archival sources, it documents the impact of abolition on Zanzibar politics, Indian merchants, East African coastal urban societies, and the entirety of maritime trade in the region. Ultimately, this thought-provoking work uncovers how western Indian Ocean societies experienced the slave trade suppression campaign as a political interven

States of Justice: The Politics of the International Criminal Court (Cambridge University Press, 2020) theorizes the ways in which states that are presumed to be weaker in the international system use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to advance their security and political interests. Ultimately, the book contends that African states have managed to instrumentally and strategically use the international justice system to their advantage, a theoretical framework that challenges the “justice cascade” argument. The empirical work of this study focuses on four major themes around the intersection of power, states’ interests, and the global governance of atrocity crimes: first, the strategic use of self-referrals to the ICC; second, complementarity between the national and the international justice systems; third, the limits of state cooperation with international courts; and fourth, the use of international courts in domestic political conflicts. Oumar Ba is an assistant professor of political science at Mor

Realizing Islam: The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World (The University of North Carolina Press 2020) by Zachary Valentine Wright (Associate Professor in Residence in History and Religious Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar) maps the intellectual history of the largest Sufi order in West and North Africa, the Tijaniyya. Using diverse primary and archival sources, Wright locates the life, teachings, and legacies of Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1815) within broader 18th century Islamic scholarly milieu of jurisprudence and theology and reformist and revivalist discourses, as well as the social and political climate of European colonialism and Ottoman control. Here, it was the methodology of tahqiq, or verification, as it was formulated through visionary encounters of the Prophet Muhammad and al-Tijani, that led to the formative epistemologies that defined the Muhammadan Path (tariqa Muhammadiyya) of the Tijaniyya. This path which is centered on the living legacy of Prophet Muhamma

In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press) by Benjamin Talton is a transnational history that explores the influence of African American leaders on US foreign policy towards Africa in the 1980s. By examining the life and labors of the political activist turned Texas congressman, Mickey Leland, Talton traces the afterlives of 1960s-era Black radicalism in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) after Leland’s election in 1978. Leland shaped the CBC’s outlook on famine in Ethiopia and established the Committee on Hunger where he developed a broad transformative vision for ending world hunger. Talton analyzes Leland’s career alongside contemporaneous political developments in Ethiopia and apartheid South Africa, an issue which ultimately became the focal point of CBC endeavors. Talton investigates the ways that anti-apartheid limited Black Congressional action on other African-related foreign policy issues throughout the decade. Talton paints a portrait

Ravi Palat’s The Making of an Indian Ocean World-Economy, 1250–1650: Princes, Paddy fields, and Bazaars (Palgrave, 2015) counters eurocentric notions of long-term historical change by drawing upon the histories of societies based on wet-rice cultivation to chart an alternate pattern of social evolution and state formation. It traces inter-state linkages and the growth of commercialization without capitalism in the Indian Ocean World. Dr. Ravi Palat is professor of sociology at SUNY Binghamton. His research interests include world-systems analysis, historical sociology, political economy, and the sociology of food. Currently working on cuisine as an element of state formation and the cultivation of a national culture; on the Americas in the making of early modern world-economies in Asia; on the parallel transformations of China and India since the mid-1800s; and on a critique of contemporary area studies. Earlier work centered on the political economy of east and southeast Asia in the context of contemporary t

James West speaks with Erik Gellman, an associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his new book Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the Lens of Art Shay (University of Chicago Press, 2020). Fusing photography and history to demonstrate how racial and economic inequality gave rise to a decades-long struggle for justice in one of America's most iconic cities, Gellman challenges us to consider: what does democracy look like? And when should we cause trouble to pursue it? This innovative collaboration provides a timely look at how social conflict can shape a city - and may even inspire readers to pursue their own forms of 'good' trouble. E. James West is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in American History at Northumbria University, Newcastle. He is the author of Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (Illinois, 2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a prem

In this unapologetically African-centered monograph, Nwando Achebe considers the diverse forms and systems of female leadership in both the physical and spiritual worlds, as well as the complexities of female power in a multiplicity of distinct African societies. From Amma to the goddess inkosazana, Sobekneferu to Nzingha, Nehanda to Ahebi Ugbabe, Omu Okwei, and the daughters or umuada of Igboland, Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa (Ohio University Press, 2020) documents the worlds and life histories of elite African females, female principles, and (wo)men of privilege. Chronologically and by theme, Nwando Achebe pieces together the worlds and experiences of African females from African-derived sources, especially language. Achebe explores the meaning and significance of names, metaphors, symbolism, cosmology, chronicles, songs, folktales, proverbs, oral traditions, traditions of creation, and more. From centralized to small-scale egalitarian societies, patrilineal to matrilineal systems, North Af

In the West African nation of Togo, applying for the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery is a national obsession, with hundreds of thousands of Togolese entering each year. From the street frenzy of the lottery sign-up period and the scramble to raise money for the embassy interview to the gamesmanship of those adding spouses and dependents to their dossiers, the application process is complicated, expensive, and unpredictable. In The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles (Duke University Press, 2019) Charles Piot follows Kodjo Nicolas Batema, a Togolese visa broker—known as a “fixer”—as he shepherds his clients through the application and interview process. Relaying the experiences of the fixer, his clients, and embassy officials, Piot captures the ever-evolving cat-and-mouse game between the embassy and the hopeful Togolese as well as the disappointments and successes of lottery winners in the United States. These detailed and compelling stories uniquely illustrate the desire and savviness of migrants as they work to find

“The most interesting women in the world!” That’s how Claire Robertson describes African women, and it’s hard to disagree with her after reading Holding the World Together: African Women in Changing Perspective (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), co-edited with Nwando Achebe. In 16 chapters, 19 contributors explore everything from issues of representation in novels and cinema, to political organizing, religious fundamentalism, slavery, love, and sexuality. Each essay is written by an expert in the field, balancing an overview of the scholarship with key examples that portray the diversity of women’s experiences on the continent. Holding the World Together represents a lively, interdisciplinary effort to invite readers into the fascinating lives of African women, past and present. Elisa Prosperetti is a Visiting Assistant Professor in African history at Mount Holyoke College. Her research focuses on the connected histories of education and development in postcolonial West Africa. Contact her at: www.elisapr

In The Politics of Disease Control. Sleeping Sickness in Eastern Africa, 1890-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Mari K. Webel tells a history of colonial interventions among three communities of the Great Lakes region of East Africa. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Eastern African societies faced a range of social, political and economic challenges, many of which were connected to the establishment of British and German colonial regimes. In the midst of these, African societies experienced an epidemic outbreak of human African Trypanosomiasis, commonly known as “sleeping sickness.” The epidemic posed a serious threat to the economic prospects of colonial regimes who felt it necessary to authorize and fund large scale campaigns aimed at researching a treatment that could cure and stop the spread of the disease. Dr. Webel locates these colonial interventions in the context of the rich intellectual worlds that Great Lakes’ communities used to make sense of experiences of misfortune and illness. She argue

Gaurav Desai’s Commerce with the Universe: Africa, India, and the Afrasian Imagination (Columbia University Press, 2013), offers an alternative history of East Africa in the Indian Ocean world. Reading the life narratives and literary texts of South Asians writing in and about East Africa, Gaurav Desai highlights many complexities in the history of Africa's experience with slavery, migration, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. Consulting Afrasian texts that are literary and nonfictional, political and private, he broadens the scope of African and South Asian scholarship and inspires a more nuanced understanding of the Indian Ocean's fertile routes of exchange. Desai shows how the Indian Ocean engendered a number of syncretic identities and shaped the medieval trade routes of the Islamicate empire, the early independence movements galvanized in part by Gandhi's southern African experiences, the invention of new ethnic nationalisms, and the rise of plural, multiethnic African nations. Calling attentio

What if the moral guardians of West African societies are postmenopausal women? This is the argument that Laura S. Grillo makes in her 2018 book, An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa (Duke University Press, 2018). Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire that spans three decades, Grillo elaborates a revolutionary argument that has significant implications not only for Côte d’Ivoire, but for the broader West African region. Postmenopausal women—the “Mothers”, as Grillo calls them—are the ultimate moral arbiters in society. They publicly perform their spiritual rebuke by stripping naked, wielding branches or pestles, and slapping their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. It is a ritual that has been observed from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, but An Intimate Rebuke is the first work to analyze these powerful displays as part of a connected moral framework. Grillo’s findings suggest both concrete ways to address the trauma of civil c

Edward Alpers’s The Indian Ocean in World History (Oxford University Press, 2014) is a concise yet an immensely informative introduction to the Indian Ocean world, which remains the least studied of the world's geographic regions. Yet there have been major cultural exchanges across its waters and around its shores from the third millennium B.C.E. to the present day. Historian Edward Alpers explores the complex issues involved in cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean Rim region over the course of this long period of time by combining a historical approach with the insights of anthropology, art history, ethnomusicology, and geography. The Indian Ocean witnessed several significant diasporas during the past two millennia, including migrations of traders, indentured laborers, civil servants, sailors, and slaves throughout the entire basin. The Indian Ocean in World History also discusses issues of trade and production that show the long history of exchange throughout the Indian Ocean world; politics and empire-bu

How have the everyday practices of parenting been shaped by patriarchy and coloniality? What are the transformative potentials of feminist parenting? In Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from Africa and Beyond, an anthology edited by Rama Salla Dieng and Andrea O’Reilly published in 2020 by Demeter Press, 28 writers from Africa, its diaspora, and around the world share reflect on these questions from their own parenting experiences and feminist activism. Collectively, the aim of the book is to explore the diversity of feminist parenting practices and the challenges this involves in wide range of social, economic, cultural, and religious contexts. Less concerned with critiquing the assumptions that underpin western feminist assumptions about parenting than with proliferating alternative accounts of the joys and struggles of feminist parenting, the book offers a powerful set of narratives and reflections on inter-generational care, structural violence, advocacy and activism, social reproduction, and the gendered

An original, rigorously researched volume that questions long-accepted paradigms concerning land ownership and its use in Africa. Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin (Rochester University Press, 2016) draws on new sources to offer an original approach to the study of land in African history. Documenting the impact of Islamization, the development of peanut production, and the institution of colonial rule on people living along the middle and lower Gambia River, the book shows how these waves of changes sweeping the region after 1850 altered local political and social arrangements, with important implications for the ability of elites to control land. Assan Sarr argues for a nuanced understanding of land and its historic value in Africa. Moving beyond a recognition of the material value of land, Sarr's analysis highlights its cultural and social worth, pointing out the spiritual associations the land generated and the ways that certain people gained privileged access to those spiritual power

Will Rollason is senior lecturer of anthropology at Brunel University London. He’s written a fascinating book titled Motorbike People: Power and Politics on Rwandan Streets (Lexington Books, 2020). Will’s book is an ethnography of taxi-moto drivers in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. Not only is his book a rich account of the everyday lives of motorcylists’ (motari) everyday lives, Will’s research challenge anthropological understanding of the concept of power and its relationship to culture. He argues that the concept of power is too expansive, too all-encompassing to provide explanations of how “power” operates in a given culture. Will finds that there is dearth of understanding in the social sciences, leading to a conceptual inability to engage in questions of justice and make common cause with the oppressed. Susan Thomson is associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! ht

Around the world Muslims praise the Prophet Muhammad through the recitation of lyrical poetry. In West Africa, Arabic praise poetry has a rich history informed by local literary, spiritual, and ritual elements. Oludamini Ogunnaike, assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, explores this abundant heritage in Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Arabic Madih Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020). In this social setting praise poetry draws from traditional Islamic materials but also employs patterns and concepts from West Africa sources and practices. Ogunnaike translates numerous poems and contextualizes them within a deep intellectual well of Sufi thought. He also places these poems within the realm of lived religious practice and presents them as part of everyday contemporary life in West Africa. In our conversation we discuss the place of praise poetry as a genre, the broader literary tradition it relies on, Sufi theology, the wider