In *Soldier's Paradise*, Samuel Fury Childs Daly delves into the ideology of militarism in post-colonial Africa. The book challenges the notion of military rule as merely chaotic, revealing a structured ideology focused on discipline and order. Daly uses archival materials to show how military regimes attempted to reshape societies in their image. The analysis explores the complex relationship between militarism and other ideologies, such as capitalism and communism. The book offers a fresh perspective on decolonization, highlighting the lasting impact of militarism on African politics.
Samuel Fury Childs Daly's *A History of the Republic of Biafra* offers a unique perspective on the Nigerian Civil War. Instead of focusing on foreign accounts or humanitarian perspectives, Daly utilizes legal records to explore the experiences of Nigerians during the conflict. The book reveals how people adapted and survived under wartime conditions, providing a rich social history. Daly's analysis of legal documents sheds light on the complexities of the war and its impact on society. The book stands as a significant contribution to understanding the Biafran conflict.
Samuel Fury Childs Daly's *On the History of Militarism in Africa After Empire* examines the rise of military regimes in post-colonial Africa. The book challenges common stereotypes about military rule, revealing a complex ideology focused on discipline and order. Daly uses legal records and archival documents to illustrate how militarism shaped societies and interacted with legal systems. The analysis extends beyond simple narratives of decline, offering a nuanced understanding of the enduring appeal of militarism. The book's insights are particularly relevant in light of recent military coups across the continent.
In Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire (Duke UP, 2024), Samuel Fury Childs Daly tells the story of how Africa’s military dictators tried and failed to transform their societies into martial utopias. Across the continent, independence was followed by a wave of military coups and revolutions. The soldiers who led them had a vision. In Nigeria and other former British colonies, officers governed like they fought battles—to them, politics was war by other means. Civilians were subjected to military-style discipline, which was indistinguishable from tyranny. Soldiers promised law and order, and they saw judges as allies in their mission to make society more like an army. But law was not the disciplinary tool soldiers thought it was. Using legal records, archival documents, and memoirs, Daly shows how law both enabled militarism and worked against it. For Daly, the law is a place to see decolonization’s tensions and ironies—independence did not always mean liberty, and freedom had a militaristic streak. In a moment when militarism is again on the rise in Africa, Daly describes not just where it came from but why it lasted so long.
Samuel Fury Childs Daly, Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War.
Elisa Prosperetti, Assistant Professor of History at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her first book, An Anticolonial Development: Public Education, Emancipation and its Limits in West Africa, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2025.
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New Books in Human Rights