New Books in African Studies

Farid Hafez, an international relations scholar at William & Mary and Georgetown researcher, examines how colonial rule shaped the governance of Islam. He compares Austria-Hungary’s policies in Bosnia with Germany’s African colonies, traces their influence on modern security practices, and explores colonial amnesia, racialized inclusion, and Islamophobic populism in Austria and Germany.

Nat Cutter, a University of Melbourne historian, uncovers the everyday worlds of British communities in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Drawing on private letters and financial records, he explores ambitious merchants, women investors, converts, household networks, and cross-cultural partnerships. They navigated religion, reputation, diplomacy, danger, and disease while pursuing trade, comfort, influence, and personal advancement across the Ottoman Maghreb.

Samuel D. Anderson, a historian and teacher specializing in Islamic education, French colonialism, and trans-Saharan history, explores the French médersa system. They discuss schools blending Islamic and French curricula, the “hyphen” linking France, Islam, and Africa, archival discoveries across the Sahara, and how medérsiens became influential intermediaries, educators, and anti-colonial actors.

Elisa Prosperetti, a historian of modern Africa and global history, discusses her book on education, race, and emancipation in twentieth-century West Africa. Topics include Europhone schooling as anticolonial development, Black Atlantic roots of educational freedom, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire’s competing visions, the sacrifices demanded of students, and how vocational reform and structural adjustment eroded public education.

Samar Abdel-Rahman, a University of Liverpool lecturer specializing in Middle Eastern and North African cinema, explores Egyptian male stardom after the 1952 revolution. She examines Omar al-Sharif, Ismail Yassin, and Farid Shawqi, tracing how comedy, melodrama, and action shaped competing visions of masculinity, patriotism, class, and national belonging. The conversation also visits cinema’s nationalization, pan-Arab audiences, and Sudanese film culture.

Adam Rovner, a University of Denver scholar of Jewish literature and migration, uncovers the extraordinary life of Nathaniel Isaacs. They explore Isaacs’s shipwreck, ties to Shaka Zulu, travels across Africa, and rise as a colonial power broker. The conversation confronts slavery, abolition, interracial families, Jewish identity, masculinity, and the contradictions of British empire through archival detective work and vivid narrative history.

When an election turns violent and neither side will concede, why is the usual answer to put both sides in the same government?Alex Noyes has spent nearly two decades asking whether that reflex works. Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Post-Conflict Power Sharing in Africa out in 2026 from the University of Pennsylvania Press, draws on more than 120 interviews with senior politicians and stakeholders in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Togo to give an unsettling answer. Power sharing can advance democratic reform, but only when two conditions hold: inclusive politics among the parties, and outside enforcers willing to hold them to the deal. Both are rare. And even where the deal ends the killing, it rewards a losing incumbent with unearned power and sets a precedent.In our conversation, Noyes explains why more than 600 such pacts have been struck since the Cold War, what the neglected Togo case reveals, and why he argues these arrangements should almost never be used after election violence. Against the scholarly consensus, Noyes finds these pacts can deliver real democratic reform, but only under conditions that rarely hold, and always at the cost of a compromised start. The costs outweigh the gains, and policymakers should stop defaulting to the model.Our guest is Alex Noyes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology.Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mahatma Gandhi was an anticolonial activist, lawyer, and politician. Less famously, but no less importantly, he was also a back-to-the-land farmer, a founder of communes, and a seeker of utopia. Living with Gandhi: Experiments in Utopia tells the story of everyday life at four of Gandhi's communities in India and South Africa. It explores who lived at each community alongside Gandhi, the experiments they undertook in the shared pursuit of universal wellbeing, and the connections that were forged between daily life and larger socio-political issues such as racial inequality, caste reform, and anticolonial activism. The need to simplify life and focus on the greater good is no less urgent now than it was in Gandhi's time. Reading about Gandhi's communities allows us to think about a range of topics that can help us to formulate our own conception of the good life, including how to spend our finite time together on this earth; how the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion operate in our daily lives; and whether or to what extent self-sacrifice is necessary for universal wellbeing.Online Archive: here Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What happens when the United States launches an unconventional foreign aid program in the aftermath of a national uprising? In this behind-the-scenes account of the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund--a private investment fund created by the U.S. Congress to jumpstart Egypt's private sector after the 2011 Egyptian revolution--A Daring Enterprise: A Us-Egyptian Partnership and the Case for Soft Power (American University in Cairo Press, 2026) by James A Harmon, Cornelius Queen, and Mark Warren tells the story of one of the most effective, yet little known, U.S. foreign policy programs today in the Middle East.Through the firsthand account of the Fund's chairman James Harmon, a veteran investment banker and former Clinton administration official, the authors reveal how a small, U.S.-backed investment fund partnered with Egyptians to spark investment, create jobs, and expand opportunities for women in the Arab world's largest country--all against a backdrop of political instability, anti-Americanism, and Washington dysfunction.At a time when America's budget deficit is rising and foreign aid is being scaled back, A Daring Enterprise reveals how a new model of foreign assistance can tackle urgent development challenges while delivering real returns for U.S. taxpayers. Most importantly, it is a powerful reminder of the value of foreign aid and why smart foreign investment is key to America's future prosperity. Cornelius W. Queen is senior vice-president at the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund. Previously, he worked on the Syrian Crisis Response in Lebanon for a local NGO and before as a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill covering trade and foreign policy issues. From 2011-2012, he served as a core staff member for the Carter Center on its international election observation mission for Egypt’s first parliamentary and presidential elections after the 2011 revolution. He is a Middle East Policy Council 40 under 40 awardee. He earned an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and his BA from the Johns Hopkins University.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In my conversation with Prof. Emmanuel Y. Lartey about his new book, Spiritual Care in African Religious Cultures: Sacred Wisdom for the Care of Persons in an Intercultural World, published by Georgetown University Press in 2026.Our conversation highlighted the importance of taking African religious worlds seriously, not merely as objects of academic study but as rich sources of knowledge about care, healing, suffering, community, spirituality, and human flourishing.Prof. Lartey’s work challenges long-standing stereotypes that have often shaped the study of African religions. The book highlights the depth and diversity of African spiritual traditions, including practices related to ancestors, healing, ceremonies, the afterlife, and experiences of evil.For me, this conversation also resonates with a question that runs through much of my work: What can we learn when we take seriously how people understand and practise care, healing, and well-being?Across African and diasporic communities, religion is not merely a matter of belief. It can be how they make sense of their lives, navigate suffering, sustain relationships, and imagine possibilities for healing. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.