New Books in African Studies
Episodes
Chike Jeffers, “Listening to Ourselves: A Multilingual Anthology of African Philosophy”
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who famously made the decision in the 1970s to henceforth only produce his creative work in his native Gikuyu, rather than in Eng...
Gregory O’Malley, “Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807” (UNC Press for the Omohundro Institute, 2014)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Gregory E. O’Malley examines a crucial, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of the African slave trade in his new book Final Passages: The Int...
Kristin Peterson, “Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria” (Duke UP, 2015)
10 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kristin Peterson‘s new ethnography looks carefully at the Nigerian pharmaceutical market, paying special attention to the ways that the drug trade l...
Zachariah Mampilly and Adam Branch, “Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change” (Zed Press, 2015)
24 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Zachariah Mampilly is the author along with Adam Branch of Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (Zed Press, 2015). Mampilly is Associ...
Gary Wilder, “Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World” (Duke UP, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Wilder‘s new book, Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World (Duke University Press, 2015) builds upon the work he b...
Scott Straus, “Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership and Genocide in Modern Africa” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
09 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Who, in the field of genocide studies, hasn’t at least once used the phrase “The century of genocide?” Books carry the title, journalists quot...
Pedro Machado, “Ocean of Trade: South Asian Merchants, Africa, and the Indian Ocean, c.1750-1850” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
05 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Pedro Machado‘s Ocean of Trade:South Asian Merchants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c.1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) is a richly detail...
Nicholas Duncan, “Tales from a Muzungu” (Peace Corps Writers, 2014)
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Tales from a Muzungu (Peace Corps Writers, 2014) relates a Peace Corps Volunteer’s experiences living and working inUganda. Mixing keen observation,...
Ellen Boucher, “Empire’s Children” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For almost 100 years, it seemed like a good, even wholesome and optimistic idea to take young, working-class and poor British children and resettle th...
Matthew M. Heaton, “Black Skin, White Coats” (Ohio UP, 2013)
27 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Skin, White Coats: Nigerian Psychiatrists, Decolonization, and the Globalization of Psychiatry (Ohio University Press, 2013), Matthew M. Heat...
Mariana Candido, “An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
17 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mariana Candido‘s book An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World. Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is a powerful ...
Erskine Clarke, “By the Rivers of Water: A Nineteenth Century Atlantic Odyssey” (Basic Books, 2013)
09 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Bayard Wilson and John Leighton Wilson were unlikely African missionaries, coming as they did from privileged slaveholding families in Georgia an...
Emilie Cloatre, “Pills for the Poorest: An Exploration of TRIPS and Access to Medication in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Palgrave, 2013)
09 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Emilie Cloatre‘s award-winning book, Pills for the Poorest:An Exploration of TRIPS and Access to Medication in Sub-Saharan Africa (Palgrave, 2013), ...
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, “Patrice Lumumba” (Ohio University Press, 2014)
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Patrice Lumumba was a leader of the independence struggle, as well as the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, in what is today th...
Elizabeth Schmidt, “Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
21 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Schmidt‘sForeign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Cambridge University Press, 2013)depicts the foreign poli...
Randy J. Sparks, “Where the Negroes Are Masters” (Harvard UP, 2014)
01 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A kind of biography of the town of Annamaboe, a major slave trading port on Africa’s Gold Coast, Randy J. Sparks‘s book Where the Negroes Are Mast...
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, “Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe” (MIT Press, 2014)
14 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Words have meaning. More specifically, the definitions attached to words shape our perspective on, and how we categorize, the things that we encounter...
Cathy L. Schneider, “Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
08 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cathy L. Schneider is the author of Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). She is a...
Michelle Moyd, “Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa” (Ohio UP, 2014)
04 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In her imaginative and scrupulous book, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (Ohio Unive...
Lisa L. Gezon, “Drug Effects: Khat in Biocultural and Socioeconomic Perspective” (Left Coast Press, 2012)
28 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Khat, the fresh leaves of the plant Catha edulis, is a mild psycho-stimulant. It has been consumed in Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia for ...
Olufemi Taiwo, “Africa Must be Modern: A Manifesto” (Indiana UP, 2014)
06 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Olufemi Taiwo‘s unremittingly honest and daring book, Africa Must be Modern: A Manifesto (Indiana University Press, 2014), confronts the reluctance,...
Amy Evrard, “The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement” (Syracuse University Press, 2014)
30 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Amy Evrard‘s first book, The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement (Syracuse University Press, 2014), examines women’s attempts to change their patri...
Ernest Harsch, “Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary” (Ohio UP, 2014)
10 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination d...
Todd Cleveland, “Stones of Contention: A History of Africa’s Diamonds” (Ohio University Press, 2014)
03 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“Diamonds are forever” or “Blood diamonds”–the one a pithy marketing slogan showing how diamonds encapsulate enduring love and commitment an...
Rebecca Rogers, “A Frenchwoman’s Imperial Story” (Stanford UP, 2013)
02 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1830s, the French school teacher Eugénie Luce migrated to Algeria. A decade later, she was a major force in the debates around educat...
Deborah Mayersen, “On the Path to Genocide: Armenia and Rwanda Reexamined” (Berghahn Books, 2014)
23 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
I live and work in the state of Kansas in the US. We think of ourselves as living in tornado alley and orient our schedules in the spring around the...
What Do We Now Know About the Rwandan Genocide Twenty Years On?
13 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In 1994 I was in graduate school, trying hard to juggle teaching, getting started on my dissertation and having something of a real life. The real li...
Toby Green, “The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery was pervasive in the Ancient World: you can find it in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In Late Antiquity , however, slavery went into de...
Samuel Totten, “Genocide by Attrition: The Nuba Mountains of Sudan” (Transaction Publishers, 2012)
18 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the authors I’ve interviewed for this show have addressed episodes in the past, campaigns of mass violence that occurred long ago, often wel...
Donovan Chau, “Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania” (NIP, 2014)
07 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Donovan Chau is the author of Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania (Naval Institute Press, 2014). Chau is ...
James Copnall, “A Poisonous Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan’s Bitter and Incomplete Divorce” (Hurst, 2014)
20 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
July 2011 saw that rarest of events – an attempt to resolve a conflict in Africa by the redrawing of borders. It saw the birth of South Sudan as a f...
Susan Thomson, “Whispering Truth to Power” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013)
24 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This spring, I taught a class loosely called “The Holocaust through Primary Sources” to a small group of selected students. I started one class by...
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, “Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
10 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare‘s wonderful new book is a thoughtful, provocative, and balanced account of the intersecting histories and practices of drug r...
Sean D. Murphy et al., “Litigating War: Mass Civil Injury and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission” (Oxford UP, 2013)
06 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Sean D. Murphy is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law at George Washington University and co-author of the book Litigatin...
Ellen J. Amster, “Medicine and the Saints” (University of Texas Press, 2013)
16 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is the interplay between the physical human body and the body politic? This question is at the heart of Ellen J. Amster‘s Medicine and the Sain...
Xolela Mangcu, “Biko: A Life” (Tauris, 2013)
25 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Host Jonathan Judaken speaks with Xolela Mangcu, biographer of Anti-Apartheid leader Steve Biko, about the life and murder of Steve Biko, as well as t...
Jennie Burnet, “Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012)
27 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least ana...
Jennifer Sessions, “By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria” (Cornell UP, 2011)
21 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Early modern European imperialism is really pretty easy to understand. Spain, Portugal, England, France, Russia and the rest were ruled by people whos...
Gabrielle Hecht, “Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade” (MIT Press, 2012)
10 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We tend to understand the nuclear age as a historical break, a geopolitical and technological rupture. In Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uran...
Lidwien Kapteijns, “Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)
16 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Lidwien Kapteijns is author of Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). She is the Kendall/Hodd...
Simon P. Newman, “A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
10 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Ask most educated people about the development of American slavery, and you’re likely to hear something about Virginia or, just maybe, South Carolin...
John K. Thornton, “A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820” (Cambridge UP, 2012).
12 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks in no small part to John K. Thornton, professor of history at Boston University, the field of Atlantic history has emerged as one of the most e...
Peter Alegi and Chris Bolsmann (editors), “Africa’s World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Space” (University of Michigan Press, 2013)
05 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, for the first time, an African nation hosted the FIFA World Cup. The advertisements surrounding the tournament used graphics and sounds inten...
Elizabeth Foster, “Faith in Empire: Religion, Politics, and Colonial Rule in French Senegal, 1880-1940” (Stanford University Press, 2013)
26 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How did French colonial administrators, missionaries, and different groups of Africans interact with one another in colonial Senegal? In her new book,...
Lee Ann Fujii, “Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda” (Cornell UP, 2009)
21 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The question Lee Ann Fujii asks in her new book Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, 2009) is a traditional one in...
Catherine Higgs, “Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa” (Ohio University Press, 2012)
14 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
With elegant and accessible prose, Catherine Higgs takes us on a journey in Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa (Ohio University Pr...
Martin Plaut and Paul Holden, “Who Rules South Africa?” (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2012)
07 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Anybody who has been following the news in recent months knows that bloodshed has returned to South Africa. The recent violence and deaths among strik...
Jason Brownlee, “Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
28 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Jason Brownlee explains the two countries rela...
Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb, “Religion and AIDS in Africa” (Oxford UP, 2012)
16 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The liberal media in the Western World takes a firm line on how two of the big issues facing Africa intersect – bluntly speaking Africa’s high lev...
Sandra Chait, “Seeking Salaam: Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis in the Pacific Northwest” (University of Washington Press, 2011)
18 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the Pacific Northwest, immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia coexist, making a life for themselves and their family in a new country. In th...
Bruce Whitehouse, “Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging” (Indiana UP, 2012)
17 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often a book lands on my desk about something so obviously interesting that I have never really considered it before. Bruce Whitehouse‘s Mi...
Steve Kemper, “Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa” (Norton, 2012)
20 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real ...
Nwando Achebe, “The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe” (Indiana University Press, 2011)
29 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When I saw Nwando Achebe‘s book The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe (Indiana University Press, 2011), I thought: “Really? A female k...
Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke, “Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History” (Oxford UP, 2012)
08 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine this: a young African girl, barefoot but wearing a dress and head wrap, clenches her fists and looks you in the eye. Behind her a semi-circle ...
Mary Harper, “Getting Somalia Wrong: Faith, War, and Hope in a Shattered State” (Zed Books, 2012)
29 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Several months ago I interviewed Steve Bloomfield, the author of a book on African football, for New Books in African studies. As usual, I ended the i...
Helen Tilley, “Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950” (University of Chicago, 2011)
01 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Tilley‘s new book Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950 (University of Chicag...
Raymond Jonas, “The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire” (Harvard UP, 2011)
01 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Raymond Jonas‘ The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire (Harvard UP, 2011) places Menelik alongside Napoleon and other greatest stra...
Orla Ryan, “Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa” (Zed Books, 2011)
27 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When was the last time you ate some chocolate? If you live in the developed world there’s a strong chance that you’ve been munching on some fairly...
Richard Bourne, “Catastrophe: What Went Wrong in Zimbabwe?” (Zed Books, 2011)
02 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the literature on modern Africa makes the unhappy comparison between hopes, especially upon independence, and reality. In Zimbabwe that link r...
Stacy Schiff, “Cleopatra: A Life” (Back Bay Books, 2011)
07 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Aside from being aesthetically equated to Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra has not fared well in history. In her riveting biography Cleopatra: A Life (Back...
Andrew Curran, “The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2011)
10 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve dealt with the question of how racial categories and conceptions evolve on New Books in History before, most notably in our interview with Nel...
Richard Hamilton, “The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of Morocco” (I. B. Taurus, 2011)
09 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Few places can match the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech for spectacle. As the shadows lengthen and dusk approaches, the square seethes with snake charmers...
Steve Bloomfield, “Africa United: How Football Explains Africa” (Canongate Books, 2010)
23 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
A couple of days ago I had an unusual experience. I was staying in a hotel in Kampala, with a stunning view of the southern reaches of the Ugandan cap...
Stephen Ellis, “Season of Rains: Africa in the world” (Hurst, 2011 )
26 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Globalisation has not passed Africa by. The recent boom in commodity prices has had a direct impact on African markets, as has the inescapable presenc...
Erin Haney, “Exposures: Photography and Africa” (Reaktion Books, 2010)
13 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In Chapter 3 of Erin Haney’s excellent book Photography and Africa (Reaktion Books, 2010) there are seven photos taken in central Africa at the turn...
Chuck Korr, “More Than Just a Game–Soccer vs. Apartheid: The Greatest Soccer Story Ever Told” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010)
26 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Chances are, if you were one of the 700 million people who watched the 2010 World Cup, you likely heard mention of the soccer games that prisoners on ...
James Brabazon, “My Friend the Mercenary: A Memoir” (Canongate, 2010)
23 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In February 2002, British journalist James Brabazon set out to travel with guerrilla forces into Liberia to show the world what was happening in that ...
Patrick Manning, “The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture” (Columbia UP, 2010)
09 Apr 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Africans were the first migrants because they were the first people. Some 60,000 years ago they left their homeland and in a relatively short period o...
Jack Greene and Philip Morgan, “Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal” (Oxford UP, 2008)
02 Oct 2009
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first in a series of podcasts that New Books in History is offering in conjunction with the National History Center. The NHC and Oxford Un...
Richard Fogarty, “Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2008)
03 Nov 2008
Contributed by Lukas
The thing about empire building is that when you’re done building one, you’ve got to figure out what to do with it. This generally involves the “...
Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)
05 Sep 2008
Contributed by Lukas
“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I’m talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest....
James Zug, “The Guardian: The History of South Africa’s Extraordinary Anti-Apartheid Newspaper” (Michigan State UP, 2007)
27 Jun 2008
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often I read a book that reminds me that things weren’t at all what they appear to have been in hindsight. James Zug‘s wonderfully writte...