African Studies

African Studies Book List

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Forthcoming

Cover of 'African Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Volume 2'

African Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Volume 2
Cabral, Machel, Mugabe, Sirleaf
By Allen F. Isaacman, Barbara S. Isaacman, Peter Karibe Mendy, Sue Onslow, Martin Plaut, and Pamela Scully

This omnibus edition brings together concise and up-to-date biographies of Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Robert Mugabe, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. African Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Volume 2 complements courses in history and political science and serves as a useful collection for general readers.

African History · Biography & Autobiography | Political · Political Science, Africa · Africa · African Studies

To Speak and Be Heard
Seeking Good Government in Uganda, ca. 1500–2015
By Holly Hanson

Through detailed archival research, Hanson reveals the origins of Uganda’s strategies for good government—assembly, assent, and powerful gifts—and explains why East African party politics often fail.

Political Science, Africa · History | Africa | East · Colonialism and Decolonization · Uganda · Eastern Africa · African Studies

Carceral Afterlives
Prisons, Detention, and Punishment in Postcolonial Uganda
By Katherine Bruce-Lockhart

This social and political history analyzes how incarceration, a practice and policy with colonial origins, was central to both the exertion of and challenges to state power in postcolonial Uganda. The book also illustrates the persistent imbrication of prisons, punishment, politics, and struggles for decolonization and freedom across the globe.

History | Africa | East · Social Science | Penology · Colonialism and Decolonization · Uganda · African Studies

Cover of 'Environment, Power, and Justice'

Environment, Power, and Justice
Southern African Histories
Edited by Graeme Wynn, Jane Carruthers, and Nancy J. Jacobs

With appreciation for both regional and chronological variation, this volume’s contributors track the global concept of environmental justice to analyze its influence in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho and to expand popular understandings of social-environmental harm.

Cover of 'Everyday State and Democracy in Africa'

Everyday State and Democracy in Africa
Ethnographic Encounters
Edited by Wale Adebanwi

Through ethnographic case studies of Africans’ quotidian encounters with state bureaucracy, infrastructure, discipline, citizenship, democracy, political economy, education, and health, this book demonstrates how the state not only enables but also constrains and complicates ordinary Africans’ daily struggles to live and live well.

Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social · Political Science | Public Affairs & Administration · Africa · African Studies · African History

Spear
Mandela and the Revolutionaries
By Paul S. Landau

Spanning the years just before (and just after) Nelson Mandela’s 1962 arrest, this entirely fresh history of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation, and its revolutionary milieu brings to life the period in which Mandela and his comrades fought South Africa’s apartheid regime not only with words and protests, but also with bombs and fire.

History | Revolutionary · Political Science, Africa · History | Africa | South | Republic of South Africa · Violence in Society · South Africa · African Studies

Cover of 'Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa'

Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa
The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria
By Saheed Aderinto

From debates over the aesthetics of birds in the urban landscape to how horse racing enhanced imperial power to the ways in which water navigation impacted aquatic creatures, Saheed Aderinto argues that it is impossible to comprehend the full extent of imperial domination without considering the colonial subjecthood of animals.

The Histories of HIVs
The Emergence of the Multiple Viruses That Caused the AIDS Epidemics
Edited by William H. Schneider

In this interdisciplinary collection, experts provide the most complete description to date of the often ignored and underappreciated features of the history of the multiple human immunodeficiency viruses (HIVs) responsible for the global AIDS pandemic.

HIV-AIDS · Public Health · African Studies · Africa · Social Science | Disease and Health Issues

The Great Upheaval
Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria
By Judith A. Byfield

In this finely textured social and intellectual history of gender and nation making, Byfield captures the dynamism of women’s political engagement in postwar Nigeria. She illuminates the centrality of gender to the study of nationalism, offering new lines of inquiry into the late colonial era and its consequences for the future Nigerian state.

History | Africa | West · Women’s Studies · Colonialism and Decolonization · Social History · Nigeria · African Studies

Cover of 'War and Society in Colonial Zambia, 1939–1953'

War and Society in Colonial Zambia, 1939–1953
By Alfred Tembo

The first major study of its kind, this book shows—from a Zambian perspective—how Northern Rhodesia, then a British colony, organized and deployed human, military, and natural resources during the Second World War. New research and oral histories further demonstrate the war’s social and industrial impact on Zambia in the immediate postwar period.

History | Africa | South | General · Political Science | Imperialism · World War II · Zambia · Eastern Africa · South Asia · Middle East · African Studies

The Muridiyya on the Move
Islam, Migration, and Place Making
By Cheikh Anta Babou

Representations of diasporic Murid disciples often depict them as passive recipients of change wrought by powerful clerics left behind in Senegal. In this study, Cheikh Anta Babou examines the construction of their transnational collective identity and its influence on cultural practices, identities, and aspirations.

Emigration and Immigration · History | Africa | West · Sufism · Senegal · Cote d'Ivoire · Gabon · France · United States · African Studies

Africanizing Oncology
Creativity, Crisis, and Cancer in Uganda
By Marissa Mika

Combining methods from African studies, science and technology studies, and medical anthropology, Marissa Mika considers the Uganda Cancer Institute as a microcosm of the Ugandan state and as a lens through which to trace the political, technological, moral, and intellectual aspirations and actions of health care providers and patients.

Embodied Engineering
Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali
By Laura Ann Twagira

Common narratives about development in Africa miss the critical technological work of women. Twagira’s study instead positions Malian women as rural engineers whose strategic planning and labor over the course of the twentieth century assured their food security.

Village Work
Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana
By Alice Wiemers

This detailed and groundbreaking history of rural Ghanaian statecraft details the crucial importance that local village development systems have on regional and national scales.

Business & Economics | Development Studies · History | Africa | West · Developing & Emerging Countries · Colonialism and Decolonization · Ghana · Western Africa · African Studies

Available

Rewriting Modernity
Studies in Black South African Literary History
By David Attwell

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History connects the black literary archive in South Africa to international postcolonial studies via the theory of transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz.

Literary Criticism, Africa · South Africa · Literature · African Studies

Apartheid’s Black Soldiers
Un-national Wars and Militaries in Southern Africa
By Lennart Bolliger

Thousands of Black troops served in South Africa’s security forces in Namibia and Angola during apartheid. Bolliger’s new research leads him to reject their common depiction as “collaborators,” challenge the portrayal of the wars in which they fought as struggles for national liberation, and reveal the complexity of South Africa’s military culture.

History | Africa | South | General · Military History · Colonialism and Decolonization · African Studies · South Africa

Fine Boys
A Novel
By Eghosa Imasuen

Set in Nigeria during the pro-democracy movement and told from the perspective of an eighteen-year-old Gen-Xer, Ewaen, this coming-of-age novel examines the violent university confraternities during the mid-1990s.

Fiction | World Literature | Africa | Nigeria · Literary Fiction · Nigeria · Literature · African Studies

The Histories of HIVs
The Emergence of the Multiple Viruses That Caused the AIDS Epidemics
Edited by William H. Schneider

HIV-AIDS · Public Health · African Studies · Africa · Social Science | Disease and Health Issues

Embodied Engineering
Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali
By Laura Ann Twagira

Cover of 'Sports in Africa, Past and Present'

Sports in Africa, Past and Present
Edited by Todd Cleveland, Tarminder Kaur, and Gerard Akindes

Through the prism of sports and from a range of scholarly perspectives, this anthology offers insight into the varied and shifting experiences of African athletes, fans, communities, and postcolonial states.

Sports & Recreation | Sociology of Sports · African History · Africa · African Studies · Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social

The Great Upheaval
Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria
By Judith A. Byfield

History | Africa | West · Women’s Studies · Colonialism and Decolonization · Social History · Nigeria · African Studies

Ubuntu
George M. Houser and the Struggle for Peace and Freedom on Two Continents
By Sheila D. Collins

George M. Houser’s moral integrity and influential advocacy for nonviolent protest helped shape the American Civil Rights Movement, anticolonial independence victories across Africa, and the overthrow of the South African apartheid regime.

Biography, Activists · History | Modern | 20th Century · Political Science | Civil Rights · Colonialism and Decolonization · South Africa · Southern Africa · African Studies

Village Work
Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana
By Alice Wiemers

This detailed and groundbreaking history of rural Ghanaian statecraft details the crucial importance that local village development systems have on regional and national scales.

Business & Economics | Development Studies · History | Africa | West · Developing & Emerging Countries · Colonialism and Decolonization · Ghana · Western Africa · African Studies

Militarizing Marriage
West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
By Sarah J. Zimmerman

By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.

History | Africa | West · Women’s Studies · Colonialism and Decolonization · Military History · Western Africa · Senegal · Algeria · Middle East · Syria · Madagascar · Vietnam · African Studies

Kwame Nkrumah
Visions of Liberation
By Jeffrey S. Ahlman

This new biography of Kwame Nkrumah (1909–72), Ghana’s first president, demonstrates how his accomplishments extend well beyond his role in Ghanaian decolonization, state-building, and the promotion of pan-Africanism to include his broader anticolonialist work toward an independent, unified Africa.

Biography, Heads of State · Africa · History | Africa | West · African Studies · Western Africa · Ghana · Colonialism and Decolonization · Political Science, Africa

The Muridiyya on the Move
Islam, Migration, and Place Making
By Cheikh Anta Babou

Emigration and Immigration · History | Africa | West · Sufism · Senegal · Cote d'Ivoire · Gabon · France · United States · African Studies

Pursuing Justice in Africa
Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices
Edited by Jessica Johnson and George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane
· Afterword by Kamari Maxine Clarke

Pursuing Justice in Africa focuses on visions of justice across the African continent, featuring essays that engage with topics at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship across a wide range of disciplines including activism, land tenure, international legal institutions, and post-conflict reconciliation.

Human Rights · Africa · African Studies · Social Science | African Studies

Cover of 'A History of Tourism in Africa'

A History of Tourism in Africa
Exoticization, Exploitation, and Enrichment
By Todd Cleveland

This book—ideal for African and world history classes, as well as for potential travelers to the continent—takes readers on a journey through the dynamics of Africa’s tourist history from the nineteenth century to the present to illuminate and challenge deeply ingrained (mis)perceptions about the continent and its peoples.

Business & Economics | Industries | Hospitality, Travel & Tourism · African History · Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social · African Studies · Africa

Chris Hani
By Hugh Macmillan

Chris Hani was one of the most highly respected leaders of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and uMkhonto we Sizwe. His assassination in 1993 threatened to upset the transition to democracy but also prompted an intervention by Nelson Mandela, which accelerated the process. This biography provides a concise presentation of this iconic political leader’s life.

Biography & Autobiography | Political · History | Africa | South | Republic of South Africa · Political Science, Africa · South Africa · Southern Africa · Africa · African Studies