New Books in African Studies

Ian Campbell, "The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame" (Hurst, 2017)

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In February 1937, following an abortive attack by a handful of insurgents on Mussolini's High Command in Italian-occupied Ethiopia, 'repression squads...

Anthony Downey, "Critique in Practice: Renzo Martens' Episode III (Enjoy Poverty)" (Sternberg Press, 2020)

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2008, the artist Renzo Martens released his controversial film Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The film port...

Pascah Mungwini, "African Philosophy: Emancipation and Practice" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

19 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In African Philosophy: Emancipation and Practice (Bloomsbury, 2022), Pascah Mungwini considers the history of African philosophy in relationship to ...

Jonathon L. Earle and J. J. Carney, "Contesting Catholics: Benedicto Kiwanuka and the Birth of Postcolonial Uganda" (Boydell & Brewer, 2021)

19 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Assassinated by Idi Amin and a democratic ally of J.F. Kennedy during the Cold War, Benedicto Kiwanuka was Uganda's most controversial and disruptive ...

Nicky Falkof, "Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa" (Manchester UP, 2022)

19 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa (Manchester University Press, 2022) looks at the pervasive culture of fear in South Afr...

On Bengt Sundkler's "Bantu Prophets in South Africa"

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bengt Sundkler wrote his 1940 book Bantu Prophets in South Africa for a white, European audience. He had no idea that his ethnographic study would pla...

Annah Lake Zhu, "Rosewood: Endangered Species Conservation and the Rise of Global China" (Harvard UP, 2022)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Money does strange things to people, as Annah Lake Zhu notes in her latest book Rosewood: Endangered Species Conservation and the Rise of Global Chin...

Emizet F. Kisangani and Jeffrey Pickering, "African Interventions: State Militaries, Foreign Powers, and Rebel Forces" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Foreign military intervention has had a profound impact on post-colonial African history and politics. Interventions have destabilized borderlands, ov...

Paul Naylor, "From Rebels to Rulers: Writing Legitimacy in the Early Sokoto State" (James Currey, 2021)

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sokoto was the largest and longest lasting of West Africa's nineteenth-century Muslim empires. Its intellectual and political elite left behind a vast...

Eva-Maria Muschik, "Building States: The United Nations, Development, and Decolonization, 1945–1965" (Columbia UP, 2022)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Postwar multilateral cooperation is often viewed as an attempt to overcome the limitations of the nation-state system. However, in 1945, when the Unit...

Jeremy Black, "A Brief History of the Atlantic" (Robinson, 2022)

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Atlantic has borne witness to major historic events that have drastically shaped humanity with each crossing of its path. In A Brief History of t...

Kristen A. Harkness, "When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Military coups are a constant threat in Africa and many former military leaders are now in control of 'civilian states', yet the military remains unde...

Blake Whitaker, "Built on the Ruins of Empire: British Military Assistance and African Independence" (UP of Kansas, 2022)

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During the Cold War, the British government oversaw the transition to independence of dozens of colonies. Often the most challenging aspect of this tr...

Yaniv Voller, "Second-Generation Liberation Wars" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The formation of post-colonial states in Africa, and the Middle East gave birth to prolonged separatist wars. Exploring the evolution of these separat...

Vanda Wilcox, "The Italian Empire and the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2021)

01 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Italian Empire and the Great War (Oxford UP, 2021) by Vanda Wilcox brings an imperial and colonial perspective to the Italian experience of the ...

Maeve Ryan, "Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System" (Yale UP, 2022)

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Maeve Ryan’s new book Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System (Yale UP, 2022) highlights Britain’s early-nineteenth-ce...

Philippe Denis, "The Genocide Against the Tutsi, and the Rwandan Churches: Between Grief and Denial" (James Currey, 2022)

17 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why did some sectors of the Rwandan churches adopt an ambiguous attitude towards the genocide against the Tutsi which claimed the lives of around 800,...

Erin C. MacLeod, "Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land" (NYU Press, 2014)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In reggae song after reggae song Bob Marley and other reggae singers speak of the Promised Land of Ethiopia. "Repatriation is a must!" they cry. The...

Tony Perman, "Signs of the Spirit: Music and the Experience of Meaning in Ndau Ceremonial Life" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2005, Tony Perman attended a ceremony alongside the living and the dead. His visit to a Zimbabwe farm brought him into contact with the madhlozi,...

Florian Wagner, "Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

07 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Florian Wagner about his new book Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 (Cambridge UP, 2022). F...

Christopher Silver, "Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth-Century North Africa" (Stanford UP, 2022)

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth-Century North Africa (Stanford UP, 2022) offers a new history of twentieth-century North...

Claire L. Wendland, "Partial Stories: Maternal Death from Six Angles" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A close look at stories of maternal death in Malawi that considers their implications in the broader arena of medical knowledge. By the early twenty-f...

Moses E. Ochonu, "Emirs in London: Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity" (Indiana UP, 2022)

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Emirs in London: Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity (Indiana UP, 2022) recounts how Northern Nigerian Muslim aristocrats who traveled to Brita...

Mark Fathi Massoud, "Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Western analysts have long denigrated Islamic states as antagonistic, even antithetical, to the rule of law. Mark Fathi Massoud tells a different stor...

Simidele Dosekun, "Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Women in Lagos, Nigeria, practice a spectacularly feminine form of black beauty. From cascading hair extensions to immaculate makeup to high heels, th...

Alison F. Richard, "Sloth Lemur's Song: Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of anima...

Martin Williams, "When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be" (Princeton UP, 2021)

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to China or the United States. Yet, this arid expanse was once a verdant, pleasant la...

Peer Schouten, "Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Cen...

Evan Lieberman, "Until We Have Won Our Liberty: South Africa After Apartheid" (Princeton UP, 2022)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty: South Africa After Apartheid (Princeton UP, 2022) ...

Ariela Marcus-Sells, "Sorcery or Science?: Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2022)

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Sorcery or Science? Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022) Ariela Marcus-Se...

Shoko Yamada, "Dignity of Labour for African Leaders: The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School" (Langaa RPCIG, 2018)

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Prince of Wales College, Achimota School, opened in 1927 north of Accra in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Achimota was to be a ‘model’ school—but a...

Adam Day, "States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance: Complexity Theory Applied to UN Statebuilding in the DRC and South Sudan" (Oxford UP, 2022)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today's vision of world order is founded upon the concept of strong, well-functioning states, in contrast to the destabilizing potential of failed or ...

Jacob Doherty, "Waste Worlds: Inhabiting Kampala's Infrastructures of Disposability" (U California Press, 2021)

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda's capital, Kampala, is undergoing dramatic urban transformations as its new technocratic government seeks to clean and green the city. Waste W...

Paddy Docherty, "Blood and Bronze: The British Empire and the Sack of Benin" (Hurst, 2022)

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artis...

Sally Hayden, "My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route" (Melville House, 2022)

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Late one night, journalist Sally Hayden received an urgent message on Facebook: “Sally, we need your help.” It was from a group of Eritrean refuge...

Sarah G. Phillips, "When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland" (Cornell UP, 2020)

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For all of the doubts raised about the effectiveness of international aid in advancing peace and development, there are few examples of developing cou...

Isabel Hofmeyr, "Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House" (Duke UP, 2022)

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House (Duke University Press, 2022), Isabel Hofmeyr traces the relationships among print cultur...

Karen Samantha Barton, "Africa’s Joola Shipwreck: Causes and Consequences of a Humanitarian Disaster" (Lexington Books, 2020)

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2002, a government-owned Senegalese ferry named the Joola capsized in a storm off the coast of The Gambia in a tragedy that killed 1,863 people and...

Megan Brown, "The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community" (Harvard UP, 2022)Megan Brown, "The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community" (Harvard UP, 2022)

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community (Harvard University Press, 2022), Dr. Megan Brown details the surprising st...

Raymond Kwun-Sun Lau, "Responding to Mass Atrocities in Africa: Protection First and Justice Later" (Routledge, 2021)

05 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from the...

Anna von Rath, "Afropolitan Encounters: Literature and Activism in London and Berlin" (Peter Lang, 2022)

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Afropolitan Encounters: Literature and Activism in London and Berlin (Peter Lang, 2022), the first book in the new series “Imagining Black Europe,”...

Paul Darby et al., "African Football Migration: Aspirations, Experiences and Trajectories" (Manchester UP, 2022)

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The global success of football icons like Samuel Eto'o, Didier Drogba and Mohamed Salah has fuelled the migratory projects of countless young men acro...

Sarah Brouillette, "Underdevelopment and African Literature: Emerging Forms of Reading" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Underdevelopment and African Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Sarah Brouillette tackles the print culture and literature in English...

Shobana Shankar, "An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India and the Spectre of Race" (Oxford UP, 2021)

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Ghanaian protests over Gandhi statues to American Vice President Kamala Harri...

Christopher Tounsel, "Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan" (Duke UP, 2021)

28 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan celebrated its independence as the world's newest nation, an occasion that the country's Christian leaders claimed had be...

Amadou Hampâté Bâ, "Amkoullel: The Fula Boy" (Duke UP, 2021)

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“In Africa, when an elder dies, a library burns.” We’ve all heard this phrase, or some version of it, but not all of us know who uttered it. It ...

Harry Verhoeven and Anatol Lieven, "Beyond Liberal Order: States, Societies and Markets in the Global Indian Ocean" (Oxford UP, 2022)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We often neglect the Indian Ocean when we talk about our macro-level models of geopolitics, global economics or grand strategy—often in favor of the...

Delinda Collier, "Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa" (Duke UP, 2020)

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020) Delinda Collier provides a sweeping new understanding of technologic...

Simon Peter Newman, "Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London" (U London Press, 2022)

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London (University of London Press, 2022) by Professor Simon P. Newman reveals the hidden stor...

Hilton Judin, "Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital" (Routledge, 2021)

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hilton Judin's book Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital (Routledge, 2021) is the first comprehensive in...

The Future of the Far Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Timothy Snyder

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The events of January 6th 2021 are contested in the US. For some supporters of Donald Trump it was, and remains, a case of a legitimate protest again...

Jason K. Stearns, "The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo" (Princeton UP, 2022)

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a "forever war"--a perpetual cycle of war, c...

Jared Staller, "Converging on Cannibals: Terrors of Slaving in Atlantic Africa, 1509-1670" (Ohio UP, 2019)

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Converging on Cannibals: Terrors of Slaving in Atlantic Africa, 1509-1670 (Ohio UP, 2019), Jared Staller tells the history of how the myth of can...

Jochen Lingelbach, "On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War" (Berghahn Books, 2020)

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the horrors of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine unfold before our eyes, we have witnessed a massive wave of refugees absorbed by a range of East...

Jonathan Fisher and Nina Wilén, "African Peacekeeping" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In African Peacekeeping (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Dr. Jonathan Fisher and Dr. Nina Wilén explore the story of Africa's contemporary histo...

Marie Muschalek, "Violence as Usual: Policing and the Colonial State in German Southwest Africa" (Cornell UP, 2019)

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Slaps in the face, kicks, beatings, and other forms of run-of-the-mill violence were a quotidian part of life in German Southwest Africa at the beginn...

Elisabeth King and Cyrus Samii, "Diversity, Violence, and Recognition: How Recognizing Ethnic Identity Promotes Peace" (Oxford UP, 2020)

29 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Diversity, Violence, and Recognition: How Recognizing Ethnic Identity Promotes Peace (Oxford UP, 2020), Elisabeth King and Cyrus Samii examine th...

Jeremy Friedman, "Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World" (Harvard UP, 2022)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist ...

Serena Owusua Dankwa, "Knowing Women: Same-sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Knowing Women: Same-sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a study of same-sex desire in West Africa, which...

Pardis Sabeti and Lara Salahi, "Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic, With a New Preface and Epilogue" (Harvard UP, 2021)

18 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As we saw with the Ebola outbreak--and the disastrous early handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic--a lack of preparedness, delays, and system-...

Brian J. Peterson, "Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa" (Indiana UP, 2021)

17 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa (Indiana University Press, 2021) by Brian J. Peterson is a thoroughly researched biography of Thom...

The Future of Africa: A Discussion with James A. Robinson

15 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Africa is often portrayed in terms of dictators, starvation, corruption, tribalism, war, disease, poverty and crime. In this podcast Professor James ...

Vicki L. Brennan, "Singing Yoruba Christianity: Music, Media, and Morality" (Indiana UP, 2018)

08 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Singing the same song is a central part of the worship practice for members for the Cherubim and Seraphim Christian Church in Lagos, Nigeria. Vicki L....

Carol Berger, "The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army: The Role of Social Process and Routinised Violence in South Sudan's Military" (Routledge, 2022)

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army: The Role of Social Process and Routinised Violence in South Sudan's Military (Routledge, 2022), Dr. Caro...

Candace M. Keller, "Imaging Culture: Photography in Mali, West Africa" (Indiana UP, 2021)

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imaging Culture: Photography in Mali, West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2021) is a sociohistorical study of the meaning, function, and aesthet...

Michelle Gordon, "Extreme Violence and the ‘British Way’: Colonial Warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone and Sudan" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

25 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Analysing three cases of British colonial violence that occurred in the latter half of the 19th century, this book argues that all three share commona...

Eghosa Imasuen, "Fine Boys: A Novel" (Ohio UP, 2021)

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Fine Boys: A Novel (Ohio University Press, 2021), Ewaen is a Nigerian teenager, bored at home in Warri and eager to flee from his parents’ unh...

Marissa Mika, "Africanizing Oncology: Creativity, Crisis, and Cancer in Uganda" (Ohio UP, 2021)

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of stories are given voice by Marissa Mika in Africanizing Oncology: Creativity, Crisis, and Cancer in Uganda (Ohio UP, 2021), a fearless,...

3.2 Promises Unkept: Damon Galgut with Andrew van der Vlies

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest host Chris Holmes sits down with Booker Prize winning novelist Damon Galgut and Andrew van der Vlies, distinguished scholar of South Afric...

Afe Adogame, "Indigeneity in African Religions: Oza Worldviews, Cosmologies and Religious Cultures" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Based on religious ethnography, in-depth interviews and archival data, Afe Adogame, Indigeneity in African Religions: Oza Worldviews, Cosmologies and...

Phillip A. Cantrell, "Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, the media has depicted Rwanda as a model of unity, development, and recovery. Dr. Cantrell II argues that not all is as it seems in ...

James S. Williams, "Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since the beginnings of African cinema, the realm of beauty on screen has been treated with suspicion by directors and critics alike. In Ethics and A...

Marco Wyss, "Postcolonial Security: Britain, France, and West Africa's Cold War" (Oxford UP, 2021)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In light of the discrepancy between Britain’s and France’s postcolonial security roles in Africa, which seemed already determined half a decade af...

Alexander Dukalskis, "Making the World Safe for Dictatorship" (Oxford UP, 2021)

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Making the World Safe for Dictatorship (Oxford University Press, 2021) Dr. Alexander Dukalskis looks at the tactics that authoritarian states use...

Erin Jessee et al., "Nyiragitwa: Daughter of Sacyega" (Mudacumura, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Erin Jessee, of the University of Glasgow, with her Rwandan co-author Jerome Irankunda, illustrator Christian Mafigiri, and translator Sylvere Mwizerw...

Omar Ashour, "How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh UP, 2021), Omar Ashour has written a detailed and data-rich analysi...

Robin Phylisia Chapdelaine, "The Persistence of Slavery: An Economic History of Child Trafficking in Nigeria" (U Massachusetts Press, 2021)

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Despite efforts to abolish slavery throughout Africa in the nineteenth century, the coercive labor systems that constitute "modern slavery" have conti...

Courtney Hillebrecht, "Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

25 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2021) is at the forefront of a ne...

Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, "Quagmire in Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Quagmire in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Dr. Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl provides the first treatment of quagmire in civil war, moving ...

Rebekah Lee, "Health, Healing and Illness in African History" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

17 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Health, Healing and Illness in African History (Bloomsbury, 2021), Rebekah Lee makes an overall assessment of the history and historiography and...

Julie Kleinman, "Adventure Capital: Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris" (U California Press, 2019)

14 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people move through the Gare du Nord train station in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the largest train station...

Charles Melson, "Fighting for Time: Rhodesia's Military and Zimbabwe’s Independence" (Casemate Academic, 2021)

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the 1960s through 1970s there were a series of conflicts in Africa involving Rhodesia, South Africa, and Portugal in conflict with the so-called ...

Aro Velmet, "Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World" (Oxford UP, 2020)

31 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aro Velmet's Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Oxford UP, 2020) is a complex history of the Pasteur Institut...

Mesfin Tadesse and Ianet Bastyan, "Lucy's People: An Ethiopian Memoir" (Yerada Lij, 2021)

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy's People: An Ethiopian Memoir (Yerada Lij,2021) is the inspiring story of a country and a life. Young engineer Mesfin grows up under Emperor H...

Isaac A. Kamola, "Making the World Global: U.S. Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary" (Duke UP, 2019)

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Following World War II the American government and philanthropic foundations fundamentally remade American universities into sites for producing knowl...

Nicole Fox, "After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda" (U Wisconsin Press, 2021)

28 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of unthinkable atrocities, it is reasonable to ask how any population can move on from the experience of genocide. Simply remembering the ...

Lennart Bolliger, "Apartheid's Black Soldiers: Unnational Wars and Militaries in Southern Africa" (Ohio UP, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

New oral histories from Black Namibian and Angolan troops who fought in apartheid South Africa’s security forces reveal their involvement, and its i...

Gill Grose: A Volunteer Librarian Changing Lives in South Africa

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Gill has been s a volunteer librarian at Claremont Primary School in Cape Town South Africa since 2010. Through her initiative she has been able to gi...

Jocelyn Hendrickson, "Leaving Iberia: Islamic Law and Christian Conquest in North West Africa" (Harvard UP, 2020)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In her landmark new book Leaving Iberia: Islamic Law and Christian Conquest in North West Africa (Harvard UP, 2020), Jocelyn Hendrickson launches a ...

Matthew H. Brown, "Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address" (Duke UP, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address (Duke UP, 2021), Matthew H. Brown analyzes the content of the prolific Nigerian film industry's most...

Retief Muller, "The Scots Afrikaners: Identity Politics and Intertwined Religious Cultures in Southern and Central Africa" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing primarily on Dutch and Afrikaans archival sources including the Dutch Reformed Church Archive and private collections, Retief Muller's The S...

Noémi Tousignant, "Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal" (Duke UP, 2018)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is “capacity”? In science research and health interventions, it typically refers to the relative availability of equipment, infrastructure, p...

Tim Hartman, "Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity" (Fortress Press, 2022)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kwame Bediako was one of the great African theologians of his generation. Challenging the assumption that Christianity is a Western religion, he prese...

Anne Hugon, "Etre mère en situation coloniale: Gold Coast (années 1910-1950)" (Editions de la Sorbonne, 2020)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For a majority of African women, the “colonial encounter” occurred at the maternity ward, the health centre, or Maternal and Infant Welfare Centre...

Drew A. Thompson, "Filtering Histories: The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times" (U Michigan Press, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Photographers and their images were critical to the making of Mozambique, first as a colony of Portugal and then as independent nation at war with apa...

Till F. Paasche and James Derrick Sidaway, "Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq, and Mozambique" (U Georgia Press, 2021)

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, I speak with Till F. Paasche and James D. Sidaway about their new book, Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq...

An Ethnography of Tourism and Globalization: In Conversation with Dr. Annie Hikido

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do Black women entrepreneurs in South Africa play off westerners’ fear and desire for impoverished townships through home-based tourist accommod...

Robin J. Hayes, "Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power, and a Diaspora Underground" (U Washington Press, 2021)

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the height of the Cold War, passionate idealists across the US and Africa came together to fight for Black self-determination and the antiracis...

Ndubueze L. Mbah, "Emergent Masculinities: Gendered Power and Social Change in the Biafran Atlantic Age" (Ohio UP, 2019)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Emergent Masculinities: Gendered Power and Social Change in the Biafran Atlantic Age (Ohio University Press, 2019), Ndubueze L. Mbah argues that...

April Sizemore-Barber, "Prismatic Performances: Queer South Africa and the Fragmentation of the Rainbow Nation" (U Michigan Press, 2020)

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

At his 1994 inauguration, South African president Nelson Mandela announced the "Rainbow Nation, at peace with itself and the world." This national rai...