New Books In African Studies

Today we spoke to Gregory Mann about his book From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Non-Governmentality (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Gregory Mann investigates how the effectiveness of government institutions declined in the years following the independence of nation-states of the West African Sahel and gave way to a state of non-governmentality. Rather than presenting a linear explanation of this decline, Mann describes instances in which one can see its multiple roots and intricate evolution. These stories describe the activities of anticolonial leaders and intellectuals during the waning years of the colonial empire and its immediate aftermath, debates over the status of migrants and immigration within the Sahel and to France, the arrival of NGOs in light of governments inability to address the drought and famine that afflicted the Sahel between 1973 and 1974 and, finally, the role human rights organizations in the handling of Saharan prisons. By telling these stories Mann illus