New Books in African Studies

Today we are joined by Amy Bass, author of the book One Goal: A Coach, A Team, and the Game that Brought a Divided Town Together (Hachette Books, 2018). This is the fourth book for Bass, who is director of the honors program and a professor of history at the College of New Rochelle in New York. One Goal is the story of a high school soccer team in Lewiston, Maine, that helped bring together a racially divided city. Lewiston, overwhelmingly white, became the home base for thousands of Somali refugees. Longtime residents of Lewiston were uncomfortable with people whose language, religion and customs were markedly different. A popular saying in Maine was “You’re always from away,” and yet Lewiston’s citizens were having trouble adjusting to this latest group of immigrants from far away. Enter longtime Lewiston High School soccer coach Mike McGraw, who saw the potential in the young Somalis playing in pickup games in the city. Molding the group into a cohesive unit, McGraw and his squad weathered racial taunts from opponents and a less-than-ringing endorsement from Lewiston’s mayor to bring an elusive soccer state championship to a traditionally hockey-mad area. Bass shows how trust, faith, hard work and some uncanny soccer ability helped bring glory and pride to a town that still struggles with coexistence between very different cultures. Bob D’Angelo is working on his master’s degree in history at Southern New Hampshire University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida and spent more than three decades as a sportswriter and sports copy editor, including 28 years on the sports copy desk at The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune. He can be reached at bdangelo57@gmail.com. For more information, visit Bob DAngelo’s Books and Blogs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Today I talked to Fahad Bishara about his book A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Dr. Bishara is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He specializes in the economic and legal history of the Indian Ocean and Islamic world. In this podcast, Dr. Bishara discusses his sophisticated history that explores the intricate legal and economic regimes that traversed the Western Indian Ocean for generations. He also talks about how he effectively mined legal documents to craft this narrative. The following podcast was originally published on H-Law’s Legal History Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Professor George Paul Meiu‘s debut anthropological book, Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money, and Belonging in Kenya (University of Chicago Press, 2017), dives into the commodification of culture and sex on the beachfronts of coastal Kenya, as well as the ramifications and shifting economic power dynamics in rural Samburu villages that result from this new economy. Utilizing over a decade of community engagement and research, Meiu expertly engages in intense anthropological study without exploitation and judgment. Rather he succeeds in humanizing his subjects as he explores the creation and development of a new economy, that of engaging with white, largely Western European women, in romantic relationships in exchange for money, goods and, eventually, higher economic and social status in their home rural communities. But with this new economy comes challenges to traditional social structures, as sexuality and wealth intersect with traditional land tenure and power. Meiu, with his deep understanding of the Samburu people, rituals and culture, explores how power dynamics change, and how new money is challenged and reconciled. This book is highly readable, without skimping on academic literature and theoretical context, resulting in a book that will engage everyone from first year anthropology students through seasoned academics. Erin Freas-Smith, Ph.D can be reached at efreassmith@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In today’s podcast we talked to Dr. Sandra Greene about her book Slave Owners of West Africa. Decision Making in the Age of Abolition published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. In this book Dr. Greene presents us with the biographies of three individuals who lived in the southeastern corner of what is today the Republic of Ghana between the mid-nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. These men became wealthy and prominent in their own communities largely through their trading activities. They had multiple wives and dependents many of whom were slaves. By documenting the lives of these three men—Amegashie Afeku of Keta, Nyaho Tamakloe of Anlo, and Noah Yawo of Ho Kpenoe—Dr. Greene examines the different ways in which they confronted the processes of European colonization and the abolition of slavery. As slaveholders, all three had much to lose from these transitions and yet, they all adopted different positions and strategies. What personal, political and economic factors informed these decisions are the central questions examined in Greene’s book. Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia is Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University. She specializes in modern intellectual history of Africa, historiography, World history and Philosophy of History. She is the co-author of African Histories: New Sources and New Techniques for Studying African Pasts (Pearson, 2011).   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments (Cambridge University Press, 2018), the contributors challenge the argument that African states lack effective political institutions as these have been undermined by neo-patrimonialism and clientelism. Scholars such as Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz have argued that Africa’s political culture is inherently different from the West and that African political system is actually working through what they term “instrumentalization of disorder.” While acknowledging some of the contributions that Chabal and Daloz have made to the understanding of Africa institutions, the contributions in this volume challenge this notion that political life in Africa is shaped primarily by social customs and not by formal rules. The contributions examine formal institutions such as the legislature, judiciary, and political parties and they show the impact of these institutions on socio-political and economic developments in the continent. Their contributions show that political and institutional developments vary across the continent and African states should not be treated as if they are the same. They argue that informal institutions have helped to shape and strengthen formal institutions. The authors of the different chapters are cutting-edge scholars in the field and they make a clear and convincing argument that formal institutions matter and that it is impossible to understand Africa without taking into consideration the roles played by these institutions. The book is edited by Nic Cheeseman. He is a professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and was formerly Director of the African Studies Centre at Oxford University. He is the recipient of the GIGA award for the best article in Comparative Area Studies (2013) and the Frank Cass Award for the best article in Democratization (2015). He is also the author of Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures and the Struggle for Political Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2015), the founding editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politic, a former editor of the journal African Affairs, and an advisor to, and writer for, Kofi Annan’s African Progress Panel. Bekeh Utietiang Ukelina is an Assistant Professor of History at SUNY, Cortland. His research examines the ideologies and practices of development in Africa, south of the Sahara. He is the author of The Second Colonial Occupation: Development Planning, Agriculture, and the Legacies of British Rule in Nigeria. For more NBN interviews, follow him on Twitter @bekeh or head to bekeh.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In his new book, Human Rights in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Bonny Ibhawoh examines the discourse of human rights in Africa. He challenges some of the dominant narratives that focus on ruthless violators and benevolent activists. Crafting the longue duree history of human rights in Africa, he argues that these rights were neither invented during the enlightenment period, nor with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the postwar period. In his analysis, he draws from African rights tradition that was central in the anti-slavery and anti-colonial struggles. He sees these struggles as human rights histories and challenges the idea that these were merely humanitarian acts. He argues that Africans in the continent and abroad during the abolition, emancipation, colonization, and decolonization processes framed and linked their activism to human rights. The discourse of human rights is so important that it should not be relegated to experts. Ibhawoh’s book is written in a scholarly, clear, and concise way to appeal to general audiences and also to further the conversation and debates on human rights, as well as affirming the dignity of all human beings. Bonny Ibhawoh is a professor of history and global human rights at McMaster University. He has taught in universities in Africa, the United States, and Canada. He was previously a Human Rights Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York, and a Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of Imperial Justice: Africans in Empires Court and Imperialism and Human Rights, named American Library Association Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Bekeh Utietiang Ukelina is an Assistant Professor of History at SUNY, Cortland. His research examines the ideologies and practices of development in Africa, south of the Sahara. He is the author of The Second Colonial Occupation: Development Planning, Agriculture, and the Legacies of British Rule in Nigeria. For more NBN interviews, follow him on Twitter @bekeh or head to bekeh.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Despite the British being early abolitionists, a significant slave trade remained in the western Indian Ocean through the mid-1800s, even after the cessation of most imperial slave trading activities in the Atlantic World. The British Royal Navy’s response was to dispatch a squadron to patrol East Africa’s coast. Following what began as a simple policing action, Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade (Overlook Duckworth Press, 2017) is the story of four Royal Naval officers who witnessed and wrote about the rampant slave trading in this region, while attempting to capture slaving vessels and recover enslaved peoples. The book grew from historian John Broich’s passion to hunt down firsthand accounts of these untold stories. Through research at archives throughout the U.K., Broich tells a tale of defiance in the face of political corruption, while delivering thrills in the tradition of high seas heroism. John Broich is the author of London: Water and the Making of a Modern British City, for which he received the WAMC/Northeast Public Radio’s President Award. He holds a PhD in British History from Stanford University, and is an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University, where he teaches about the British Empire, the British in the Middle East, and World War II. Tyler Yank is a senior doctoral candidate in History at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). Her work explores bonded women and British Empire in the western Indian Ocean World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Our guest today was Dr. Jennifer Hart who talked to us about her recently published book Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation (Indiana University Press, 2016). In this book, Dr. Hart traces the history of automotive transportation in Ghana from the introduction of the first motor vehicles during the early colonial period through the beginnings of the twenty-first century. Ghana on the Go focuses on the emergence and growth of commercial transportation which became the most prevalent way for Ghanaians to experience automotive mobility. Dr. Hart centers her narrative in the personal stories of drivers and passengers to examine how automotive mobility allowed for social and economic mobility building from an existing entrepreneurial culture. She threads these stories with a larger history of political contestation, economic development and state regulation to examine the long-term impact of automotive technology in the evolution of Ghanaian state, society and culture. Dr. Jennifer Hart is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Wayne State University. Her research interests include African history and Urban History. Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia is Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University. She specializes in modern intellectual history of Africa, historiography, World history and Philosophy of History. She is the co-author of African Histories: New Sources and New Techniques for Studying African Pasts (Pearson, 2011). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Kimberly speaks with Dr. Christopher J. Lee about his newest book A Soviet Journey: A Critical Annotated Edition (Lexington Books, 2017). A Soviet Journey was a travel memoir written by South African writer and anti-apartheid activist, Alex La Guma. The memoir describes La Guma’s experiences in Soviet Central Asia, Siberia, and Lithuania. La Guma’s notes on his travels in the Soviet Union in the 1970s provide insight on the lasting impact of the Soviet Union on writers and intellectuals from the Third World. Dr. Lee edited, annotated, and provided an analytical introduction to La Guma’s work. Lee’s addition to the book includes critical analysis of La Guma’s travel memoir. He places La Guma and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) into the context of the Soviet role in anti-imperial struggle in the Third World and provides depth to our understanding of the African National Congress connection to radical groups like the CPSA. Lee also shows, through La Guma’s writing, how anti-apartheid activists saw the Soviet Union, particularly Soviet Central Asia, as a successful example of the Soviet anti-racist and anti-imperialist message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Today we talked to Seth Markle about his book, A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzania, Black Power, and the Uncertain Future of Pan-Africanism 1964-1974, published by Michigan State University Press in 2017 as part of the Ruth Simms Hamilton African Diaspora Series. Providing extensive insight into the importance of Tanzania in the emergence of a new form of Pan-Africanism in the 1960s, Markle conveys both the character of modern nationhood in Tanzania as well the activists in the diaspora who shaped and were affected by it. Markle highlights the international connections that defined the African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism throughout the 1960s and 70s. His book is a story about the networks and friendships that tie together Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania to the pivotal figures and ideas of the twentieth century, including Malcolm X, A.M. Babu, Stokely Carmichael, and Walter Rodney. Seth Markle is an Associate Professor of History and International Studies at Trinity College. He also serves as the Director of the Human Rights Program; Coordinator of the International Studies Program’s Africa concentration and Interdisciplinary Minor in African Studies and is the Faculty Advisor to Trinity’s International Hip Hop Festival. Jacob Ivey is an Assistant Professor of History at the Florida Institute of Technology. His research centers largely on the British Colony of Natal, South Africa, most notably European and African systems of state control and defense during the colony’s formative period.He tweets @IveyHistorian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies