New Books in African Studies

Fumilayo Showers, "Migrants Who Care: West Africans Working and Building Lives in U.S. Health Care" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

21 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the U.S. population ages and as health care needs become more complex, demand for paid care workers in home and institutional settings has increase...

Charis Enns and Brock Bersaglio, "Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

20 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya (University of Toronto Press, 2024) tells the story of how settler colonialis...

Jeremy Black, "The Atlantic Slave Trade in World History" (Routledge, 2015)

14 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Atlantic Slave Trade in World History (Routledge, 2015), Jeremy Black presents a compact yet comprehensive survey of slavery and its impact o...

Cristiana Strava, "Precarious Modernities: Assembling State, Space and Society on the Urban Margins in Morocco" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does living “precariously” mean in Casablanca? In 2014 it meant being labeled tcharmil (seeming to endanger public order) and swept up by t...

100 Years of Radio in South Africa: Then and Now

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: 100 Years of Radio in South Africa, Volume 1: South African Radio Stations and Broadcasters Then & Now (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)...

Rabiat Akande, "Entangled Domains: Empire, Law and Religion in Northern Nigeria" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

06 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Set in Colonial Northern Nigeria, this book confronts a paradox: the state insisted on its separation from religion even as it governed its multirelig...

Jeffrey Ahlman, "Ghana: A Political and Social History" (Zed Books, 2023)

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last two decades, historians have steadily moved away from writing longue durée national histories. Especially in the wake of the global his...

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640" (U Texas Press, 2024)

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640 (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam presents a hist...

Maarten Couttenier, "Anthropology and Race in Belgium and the Congo (1839-1922)" (Routledge, 2023)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Maarten Couttenier's Anthropology and Race in Belgium and the Congo (1839-1922) (Routledge, 2023) examines the history of Belgian physical anthropo...

Patryk I. Labuda, "International Criminal Tribunals and Domestic Accountability" (Oxford UP, 2023)

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1990s, the promise of justice for atrocity crimes was associated with the revival of international criminal tribunals (ICTs). More recently, ho...

Noo Saro-Wiwa, "Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China" (Canongate Books, 2024)

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Just a decade ago, before COVID upended everything, tens of thousands of migrants from African countries traveled to China in search of economic oppor...

Tayo Agunbiade, "Untold Histories of Nigerian Women: Emerging from the Margins" (Cambridge Scholars, 2023)

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Untold Histories of Nigerian Women: Emerging from the Margins (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) is a curation of insightful and engaging narrati...

Ali Bhagat, "Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism" (Cornell UP, 2024)

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell UP, 2024) answers a straightforward question: how are refugees governed ...

Sean M. Kelley, "American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865" (Yale UP, 2023)

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A total of 305,000 enslaved Africans arrived in the New World aboard American vessels over a span of two hundred years as American merchants and marin...

Cristina Brito, "Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cristina Brito's book Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa (Amsterdam University Press, 2024) deals with peoples' practices...

Noah L. Nathan, "The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

03 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions wh...

Mpho Ngoepe and Sindiso Bhebhe, "Indigenous Archives in Postcolonial Contexts: Recalling the Pasts" (Routledge, 2024)

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mpho Ngoepe and Sindiso Bhebhe's Indigenous Archives in Postcolonial Contexts: Recalling the Pasts (Routledge, 2024) revisits the definition of a r...

Carly Goodman, "Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction" (UNC Press, 2023)

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a world of border walls and obstacles to migration, a lottery where winners can gain permanent residency in the United States sounds too good to be...

Obert Bernard Mlambo, "Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

27 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this highly original book Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War (Bloomsbury, 2022), Dr. Obe...

Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, "The Dictator Novel: Writers and Politics in the Global South" (Northwestern UP, 2019)

18 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Where there are dictators, there are novels about dictators. But "dictator novels" do not simply respond to the reality of dictatorship. As this genre...

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, "Post-Imperial Possibilities: Eurasia, Eurafrica, Afroasia" (Princeton UP, 2023)

18 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can territory and peoples be organized? After the dissolution of empires, was the nation-state the only way to unite people politically, culturall...

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, "Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World" (U California Press, 2022)

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World (University of California Press, 2022) by Dr. Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre is a bold, rigoro...

Lehasa Moloi, "Developing Africa?: New Horizons with Afrocentricity" (Anthem Press, 2024)

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Developing Africa? New Horizons with Afrocentricity (Anthem Press, 2024) is written for those who are interested in theoretical debates as they rel...

Ana Lucia Araujo, "The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, 2023) explores how objects of presti...

Kerstin Bree Carlson, "The Justice Laboratory: International Law in Africa" (Brookings Institution Press, 2022)

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since World War II, the United Nations and other international actors have created laws, treaties, and institutions to punish perpetrators of gen...

Youjin B. Chung, "Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscape: Gender Politics and Liminality in Tanzania's New Enclosures" (Cornell UP, 2024)

06 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the “global land grab” of the early twenty-first century, legions of investors rushed to Africa to acquire land to produce and speculate on...

Paul Stoller, "Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times" (Cornell UP, 2023)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Wisdom From the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times (Cornell University Press, 2023) describes what anthropologists can do to contribute to ...

The Conflict in Sudan

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nisrin Elamin is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto whose work investigates the connections between land, race, belon...

Democracy in Malawai

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Ufahamu Africa, cohost Kim Yi Dionne presents on the state of democracy in Malawi as part of a panel at the 2023 African Studies As...

Nicholas Radburn, "Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" (Yale UP, 2023)

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the eighteenth century, Britain’s slave trade exploded in size. Formerly a small and geographically constricted business, the trade had, by t...

Kathryn Mathers, "White Saviorism and Popular Culture: Imagined Africa as a Space for American Salvation" (Routledge, 2022)

14 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In White Saviorism and Popular Culture: Imagined Africa as a Space for American Salvation (Routledge, 2022), Kathryn Mathers interrogates the white...

Judith Surkis, "Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930" (Cornell UP, 2019)

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Judith Surkis's Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930 (Cornell UP, 2019) traces the intersection of colonialism, law, land expropri...

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, "Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History" (Routledge, 2020)

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This original research on the forgotten Libyan genocide specifically recovers the hidden history of the fascist Italian concentration camps (1929-1934...

Paul F. Diehl et al., "When Peacekeeping Missions Collide: Balancing Multiple Roles in Peace Operations" (Oxford UP, 2023)

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The contemporary world is beset with a wide variety of conflicts, all of which have features without historical precedent. While most accounts of peac...

Rita Kesselring, "Bodies of Truth: Law, Memory, and Emancipation in Post-Apartheid South Africa" (Stanford UP, 2017)

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rita Kesselring’s important book Bodies of Truth: Law, Memory, and Emancipation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Stanford University Press, 2017) see...

China’s Environmental Footprint in Ghana: Non-State Responses

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Musicians and community activists in Ghana have raised their voices to increase awareness of the environmental impact of Chinese activities in the cou...

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, "Decolonizing Human Rights" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

03 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his extensive body of work, Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim challenges both historical interpretations of Islamic Sharia and neo-colonial underst...

Chris S. Duvall, "The African Roots of Marijuana" (Duke UP, 2019)

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There's so much discussion in the contemporary United States about marijuana. Debates focus on legalization and medicalization. Usually, Reefer Madnes...

Kathleen Klaus, "Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-Making" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kathleen Klaus, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco has written a terrific book, Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Ele...

Laurent Dubois, “The Banjo: America’s African Instrument” (Harvard UP, 2016)

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Most scholars of popular music use songs, artists, and clubs as the key texts and sites in their exploration of the social, cultural, political, and e...

Elena Schneider, "The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World" (UNC Press, 2018)

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Histories of the British occupation of Havana in 1762 have focused on imperial rivalries and the actions and decisions of European planters, colonial ...

George MacLeod, "Mediating Violence from Africa: Francophone Literature, Film, and Testimony After the Cold War" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

George MacLeod's book Mediating Violence from Africa: Francophone Literature, Film, and Testimony After the Cold War (U Nebraska Press, 2023) explor...

Adrienne E. Strong, "Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania" (U California Press, 2020)

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania (University of California Press, 2020) is a gripping ethnographic account of...

Jenny Trinitapoli, "An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A decade-long study of young adulthood in Malawi demonstrates the impact of widespread HIV status uncertainty, laying bare the sociological implicatio...

Tom Buitelaar, "Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo" (Oxford UP, 2023)

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) - as the only permanent international court that addresses crimes against humanity, genocide, and war ...

Bernard Forjwuor, "Critique of Political Decolonization" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is political independence? As a political act, what was it sanctioned to accomplish? Is formal colonialism over, or a condition in the present, a...

Troels Burchall Henningsen, "Western Intervention and Informal Politics: Simulated Statebuilding and Failed Reforms" (Routledge, 2021)

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Western Intervention and Informal Politics: Simulated Statebuilding and Failed Reforms (Routledge, 2021) by Dr. Troels Burchall Henningsen examines t...

Louis-Alexandre Berg, "Governing Security After War: The Politics of Institutional Change in the Security Sector" (Oxford UP, 2022)

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Security assistance has become the largest component of international peacebuilding and stabilisation efforts, and a primary tool for responding to ci...

Have We Entered a New Era of African Politics and International Relations?

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Is the recent resurgence of military coups reshaping politics in sub-Saharan Africa? Is faith in multiparty elections waning among citizens? And how d...

Yan Slobodkin, "The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies" (Cornell UP, 2023)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Yan Slobodkin traces the history of famine in t...

Xavier Luffin, "Another Look at Congolese History: Arabic and Swahili Documents in the Belgian Archives" (Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 2020)

09 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Another Look at Congolese History: Arabic and Swahili Documents in the Belgian Archives (Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 2020), edited b...

Sara Byala, "Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African" (Oxford UP, 2023)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Travel to virtually any African country and you are likely to find a Coca-Cola, often a cold one at that. Bottled asks how this carbonated drink bec...

Sayan Dey, "Performing Memories and Weaving Archives: Creolized Cultures across the Indian Ocean" (Anthem Press, 2023)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Usually, discourses on the planetary evolution and the movements of slaves remain restricted within the narratives and scholarships of the Trans-Atlan...

Nader Kadhem, "Africanism: Blacks in the Medieval Arab Imaginary" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

25 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-blackness has until recently been a taboo topic within Arab society. This began to change when Nader Kadhem, a prominent Arab and Muslim thinker ...

Musab Younis, "On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought" (U California Press, 2022)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought (U California Press, 2022) examines the reverberations of anticolonial ideas t...

B Camminga, "Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa: Bodies Over Borders and Borders Over Bodies" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa: Bodies Over Borders and Borders Over Bodies (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) tracks the conceptual jou...

David Veevers, "The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire" (Ebury Press, 2023)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the British Empire is a familiar one: Britain came, it saw, it conquered, forging a glorious world empire upon which the sun never set. I...

Lesley Nicole Braun, "Congo's Dancers: Women and Work in Kinshasa" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I spoke with Lesley Nicole Braun to talk about her new book on Congo's dancers. Dance music plays a central role in the cultural, social, relig...

Charles Forsdick and Claire Launchbury, "Transnational French Studies" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the 16th October 2023, I met with Claire Launchbury and Charles Forsdick to discuss the recent publication of Transnational French Studies (Live...

Onyeka Nubia, "England’s Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV programmes and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet o...

Lucy Fulford, "The Exiled: Empire, Immigration and the Ugandan Asian Exodus" (Coronet, 2023)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda, August 1972. President Idi Amin makes a shocking pronouncement – the country’s South Asian population is being expelled. They have ninety ...

Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, "Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future" (Stanford UP, 2023)

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Upon their independence, Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian governments turned to the Global South and offered military and financial aid to Black liber...

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein, "The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice" (U Notre Dame Press, 2023)

08 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's book The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice (U Notre Dame Press, 2023) explo...

Thula Simpson, "History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present" (Oxford UP, 2022)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. Thula Simpson's History of South A...

Shezan Muhammedi, "Gifts from Amin: Ugandan Asian Refugees in Canada" (U of Manitoba Press, 2022)

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the economy to "Ugandan ...

Seema Alavi, "Sovereigns of the Sea: Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire" (India Allen Lane, 2023)

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of the strange artifacts of history that Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, was once controlled by the Sultanate of Oman. In 1832, then S...

Nigel Biggar, "Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning" (William Collins, 2023)

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the 'End of History' - that the global dominance of ...

Ian Patel, "We're Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire" (Verso, 2021)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What are the origins of the hostile environment against immigrants in the UK? In We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empi...

Coups and the Threat of “Feel Good” Militarism in Africa

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why are we seeing a rise in coups in Africa and growing debate about the possible benefits of military rule? What are the roots of “feel good” mil...

A Better Way to Buy Books

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...

Padraic X. Scanlan, "Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain" (Robinson, 2021)

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The British empire, in sentimental myth, was more free, more just and more fair than its rivals. But this claim that the British empire was 'free' and...

Jenna N. Hanchey, "The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO" (Duke UP, 2023)

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO (Duke UP, 2023), Jenna N. Hanchey examines the decolonial pote...

Samson A. Bezabeh, "Djibouti: A Political History" (Lynne Rienner, 2023)

27 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, at the intersection of the world’s busiest shipping routes, Djibouti has long been a global geostrate...

Pedro Monaville, "Students of the World: Global 1968 and Decolonization in the Congo" (Duke UP, 2022)

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On June 30, 1960—the day of the Congo’s independence—Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a fiery speech in which he conjured a definitive shift ...

Morgan J. Robinson, "A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili" (Ohio UP, 2022)

19 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also arou...

Terrence Lyons, "The Puzzle of Ethiopian Politics" (Lynne Rienner, 2019)

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did a group with its origins in a small Marxist-Leninist insurgency in northern Ethiopia transform itself into a party (the EPRDF) with eight mill...

Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan, "Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War" (Oxford UP, 2023)

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan about their new book Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War (Oxford UP, 2023) The ongoing war and con...

Karen E. Rignall, "An Elusive Common: Land, Politics, and Agrarian Rurality in a Moroccan Oasis" (Cornell UP, 2021)

12 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Karen E. Rignall's book An Elusive Common: Land, Politics, and Agrarian Rurality in a Moroccan Oasis (Cornell UP, 2021) details the fraught dynamic...

Zahi Zalloua, "Solidarity and the Palestinian Cause: Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Promise of Universality" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Zahi Zalloua provides the first examination of Palestinian identity from the perspective of Indigeneity and Critical Black Studies. Examining the Pale...

Steven Press, "Blood and Diamonds: Germany's Imperial Ambitions in Africa" (Harvard UP, 2021)

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the late 1990s, activists have campaigned to remove "conflict diamonds" from jewelry shops and department stores. But if the problem of conflict...

Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, "Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America" (UNC Press, 2023)

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Twentieth-century African American history cannot be told without accounting for the significant influence of Pan-African thought, just as the story o...

Omolade Adunbi, "Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic Zones and Extractive Practices in Nigeria" (Indiana UP, 2022)

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do we measure and truly grasp the sweeping social and environmental effects of an oil-based economy?  Focusing on the special economic zones resu...

India's Development Diplomacy and Soft Power in Africa

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Kenneth King (University of Edinburgh) & Meera Venkatachalam (University of Mumbai), discuss their recently co-edited volume, India'...

Ismay Milford, "African Activists in a Decolonising World: The Making of an Anticolonial Culture, 1952-1966" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As wars of liberation in Africa and Asia shook the post-war world, a cohort of activists from East and Central Africa, specifically the region encompa...

Erin Pettigrew, "Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara: Islam, Spiritual Mediation, and Social Change" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

23 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara: Islam, Spiritual Mediation, and Social Change (Cambridge UP, 2023), Erin Pettigrew utilizes invisible force...

António Tomás, "In the Skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda" (Duke UP, 2022)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In his book, In the Skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda (Duke UP, 2022), António Tomás traces the history and transformation of Lua...

Simona Berhe and Olindo de Napoli, "Citizens and Subjects of the Italian Colonies: Legal Constructions and Social Practices, 1882-1943" (Routledge, 2021)

13 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Simona Berhe and Olindo de Napoli's Citizens and Subjects of the Italian Colonies: Legal Constructions and Social Practices, 1882-1943 (Routledge, 2...

Dinah Hannaford, "Aid and the Help: International Development and the Transnational Extraction of Care" (Stanford UP, 2023)

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hiring domestic workers is a routine part of the expat development lifestyle. Whether working for the United Nations, governmental aid agencies, or NG...

Robin Steedman, "Creative Hustling: Women Making and Distributing Films from Nairobi" (MIT Press, 2023)

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of the global creative economy? In Creative Hustling: Women Making and Distributing Films from Nairobi (MIT Press, 2023), Robin ...

Apostolos Andrikopoulos, "Argonauts of West Africa: Unauthorized Migration and Kinship Dynamics in a Changing Europe" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In rapidly changing and highly precarious contexts, unauthorized African migrants turn to kinship in search of security, stability, and predictability...

Chris Wickham, "The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180" (Oxford UP, 2023)

03 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A new account of the Mediterranean economy in the 10th to 12th centuries, forcing readers to entirely rethink the underlying logic to medieval economi...

Edward Kissi, "Africans and the Holocaust: Perceptions and Responses of Colonized and Sovereign Peoples" (Routledge, 2021)

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This book is an original and comparative study of reactions in West and East Africa to the persecution and attempted annihilation of Jews in Europe an...

Markus Virgil Höhne, "Between Somaliland and Puntland: Marginalization, Militarization and Conflicting Political Vision" (Rift Valley Institute, 2023)

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On February 6, 2023, fighting erupted around Las Anod, a city in the eastern parts of the de facto independent state of Somaliland. This still-ongoi...

Daniel E Agbiboa, "Mobility, Mobilization, and Counter/Insurgency: The Routes of Terror in an African Context" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

17 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Mobility, Mobilization, and Counter/Insurgency: The Routes of Terror in an African Context (U Michigan Press, 2022), Daniel Agbiboa takes African...

Daniel E. Agbiboa, "They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria" (Oxford UP, 2023)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Accounts of corruption in Africa and the Global South are generally overly simplistic and macro-oriented, and commonly disconnect everyday (petty) cor...

J. P. Daughton, "In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism" (Norton, 2021)

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

J. P. Daughton's In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism (W. W. Norton, 2021) examines the complex...

Rob Marchant, "East Africa’s Human Environment Interactions: Historical Perspectives for a Sustainable Future" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

East Africa’s Human Environment Interactions: Historical Perspectives for a Sustainable Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) is an ambitious integra...

Negotiating Decolonization: The Limits of a Fairy Tale

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of International Horizons, Valerie Rosoux, Research Director at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) discusses the disagre...

Anne Gerritsen and Burton Cleetus, "Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000 (Bloomsbury, 2023): Introducing mater...

Burkhard Schnepel and Julia Verne, "Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity across the Indian Ocean" (Ohio UP, 2022)

27 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity across the Indian Ocean (Ohio University Press, 2022) is an innovative collection of essays that for...