New Books in African Studies

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 levels of religiosity have contributed substantially to its high levels of HIV infection. Religion and AIDS in Africa (Oxford UP, 2012), however, tells a different story, and one based upon an impressive amount of data. For a start, the story that the authors tell is far more nuanced than this broad-brush representation of how religion has impacted HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. In places it has aggravated infection rates and in others it has led to lower levels, for instance through emphasising sex within marriage and through education. Often the picture depends far more upon the message being put out by particular religious leaders in particular villages than the niceties of any Islamic or Christian doctrine. Jenny Trinitapoli and Alex Weinreb also treat AIDS and HIV in a far more holistic way than simply talking about infection rates. They look at the impact of religion on care for the ill, on the intersection between religion and traditional medicine, and the role that stigma has to play. The result is a very serious book about a very serious subject, packed full of insight, data and analysis. It deserves to be widely read by those interested in how HIV and AIDS have impacted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In the Pacific Northwest, immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia coexist, making a life for themselves and their family in a new country. In the book Seeking Salaam : Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis in the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Press, 2011), Sandra Chait goes into these communities to understand the particular issues and conflicts that they face, particularly with each other. Though these immigrants often work together and have children in the same school, tensions among them are high, due to historical as well as current events in the Horn of Africa. Violence and poverty continue to plague these three countries, and news from back home increases the resentment that creates a heavy burden for these immigrants to carry. Chait, herself having grown up in apartheid South Africa, felt a need to bear witness to their stories, and records their narratives with grace and sensitivity. Though Salaam (peace in Arabic) may be difficult to find, these survivors continue to search for it, as they struggle to move on and build a better life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

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 Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging (Indiana University Press, 2012) is exactly like that, tackling something that is an integral part of the lives of millions across the continent of Africa, and so familiar as to almost be ignored: migration between African countries. The book is the result of extensive fieldwork by Bruce in Congo Brazzaville, examining the lives of West African immigrants (initially from Mali, but from other neighboring countries as well) who had moved there for work, and the challenges they face. Why were they there? What were they doing? How long did they want to stay? What were they there for? The result is an in-depth study that provokes more questions about other migrants in other settings across the continent. It opens a window on the motivations, lives, achievements and frustrations that affect so many Africans, and it is a story well worth reading about – but first have a listen to the interview! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

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 adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk. Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits. The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition. The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview! PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website. Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

When I saw Nwando Achebe‘s book The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe (Indiana University Press, 2011), I thought: “Really? A female king? Cool!” It turns out Ahebi Ugbabe was not only a female king, but also a female husband and father. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Ahebi Ugbaba was born late in the nineteenth century in Igboland, in present-day Nigeria. She fled home to escape her community’s dedication of her in marriage to a deity to compensate for a crime her father had committed. The marriage would have reduced her to the status of a slave. After twenty years as a prostitute and trader in exile, she returned and established herself: first as headman, then as warrant chief, and finally as king. For a biological woman to transform herself into a social man was a familiar practice in Igboland. But for anyone to be chief or king was not. The Igbo had practiced communitarian rule by groups of elders; it was the British who imposed rule by a single person. It was perhaps inevitable that Ahebi’s rule would be troubled. The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugabe is a fascinating exploration of the fluidity of gender and the nature of political authority. And it’s a remarkable reconstruction not only of colonial rule at the local level, but also of pre-colonial life and post-colonial memory. I highly recommend Nwando Achebe, Professor of History at Michigan State University, is the winner of both the Barbara “Penny” Kanner Prize and the Gita Chaudhuri Prize of the Western Association of Women Historians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

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 of men, some in suits and some in kente cloth, turn their backs to her. The girl is Abina, the men are “Important Men,” and together they grace the cover of of Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History (Oxford University Press, 2012), a collaborative effort of historian Trevor R. Getz and graphic artist Liz Clarke. In 1876 Abina took her former master to court in the British-controlled Gold Coast for having enslaved her. She had already escaped to freedom: she seems to have brought charges simply because she wanted her experience of slavery to be recognized. It wasn’t. Abina lost her case. But in reconstructing Abina’s story in graphic form, Getz and Clarke bring it to present-day readers. And they also bring important questions to the students who are the intended audience of this book: What background information do we need to understand Abina’s story? Whose voices do we hear, and whose don’t we hear? What do historians do when they don’t know all the details of a story? Trevor R. Getz is Professor of History at San Francisco State University, and Liz Clarke is a professional artist and graphic designer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Together, they bring a silenced voice back to life, and they do it in an enormously engaging way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

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 interview with a simple enough sounding question: ‘Where is your favourite place in Africa?’ Steve’s answer was an unusual one – ‘Mogadishu’. Out of all of the fabulous places on the continent why on earth had he chosen the place that in itself was an expression for chaotic, murderous anarchy? Mary Harper’s Getting Somalia Wrong: Faith, War, and Hope in a Shattered State (Zed Books, 2012) helps explain why Steve was so entranced with Mogadishu. Somalia is not an easy place to get your head around, but it’s certainly fascinating, and Mary (an old journalistic colleague of mine from the BBC World Service) knows it well enough to give an outsider a real feel for what makes the place tick. Somalia is a country of paradoxes. It is pretty much unique in Africa for its racial, linguistic, cultural and religious coherence, and yet it lacks any genuine and effective central government. Some Somalis dream of a ‘greater Somalia’ that would involve incorporating chunks of territory from neighbours, and yet it is itself home to (at least) two coherent breakaway states, Somaliland and Puntland. It is a failed state and yet every Somali has a set place in its intricate web of clans that allows some of the most complicated functions of a modern state to function without the usual state infrastructure. Somali also matters: from the piracy that reaches out from its shores far into the Indian Ocean, to its potential for destabilising a large chunk of eastern Africa through violence and Islamic extremism, to the security threat that its diaspora is considered by some to pose from Minneapolis to Melbourne. Mary’s book is an excellent way to (begin to) understand Somalia, a place that she evidently loves. She doesn’t pretend that it’s anything less than a complicated and unique country, but leaves readers flattering themselves that they understand the country more than is genuinely possible! I really enjoyed reading the book, and now have a bit more of an idea why Steve thought Mogadishu was the best place in Africa. I hope you enjoy the interview, and I thoroughly recommend getting hold of a copy of the book! PS: Mary’s website is www.maryharper.co.uk and she can be found on Twitter at @mary_harper PPS: Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Helen Tilley‘s new book Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2011) uncovers the surprising relationships that developed between science and empire as Britain attempted to fulfill its imperial projects in Africa. Focused primarily on Britain’s colonial dependencies, Tilley shows how the weakness of the empire and the complexity of Africa and of Africans transformed field studies into social and scientific laboratories conducting not merely scientific experiments but also experiments in epistemology, governance and disciplinary methods and aims. Tilley shows how what she calls “vernacular knowledge” circulated and affected metropolitan decision making, how understandings of ecology and complexity seemed to produce both epistemic and imperial humility and how some scientists were ambivalent about their participation research in states that were founded on white rule. Development, under all of its meanings, began long before decolonization, and Africa as a Living Laboratory shows us how imperial ambitions, expertise and experience transformed understandings of what was possible and how it would be best achieved.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Raymond Jonas‘ The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire (Harvard UP, 2011) places Menelik alongside Napoleon and other greatest strategists. The Ethiopian emperor carried out a brilliant maneuver across hundreds of miles, essentially defeating his Italian adversaries without battle. That battle came was the colossal blunder of the Italians and one that cost thousands of Italian and Askari soldiers their lives. More than just the history of the campaign, The Battle of Adwa provides keen insights into Menelik’s court and elucidates Italian imperial ambitions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

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 recently. At the basic level chocolate is an everyday treat and at the top end it is a seriously indulgent luxury product. But how much thought have you ever put into where that chocolate comes from and how it touches the lives of those involved in making it – and the countries in which they live? If you live in the parts of Africa at the centre of the world’s cocoa crop it is unlikely that you’ve ever tasted chocolate in its final, consumer form. In places like Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana cocoa is a crop, a commodity and a mainstay of the economy. Orla Ryan‘s Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa (Zed Books, 2011) is an attempt to tease out the complex interplay between cocoa, the farmers who grow it and the fortunes of the wider societies. She examines issues like child slavery (a favourite campaign subject for international rock stars) and whether programmes like ‘Fairtrade’ can produce a genuinely better deal for poor farmers (she argues that what has really improved the lot of Ghanaian farmers is democracy). Whether you’re interested in the economics of cocoa, want to view the situation in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire through the lens of this crucial commodity, or are simply curious about where the chocolate bar that you have in your bag really comes from, I recommend reading this book. Orla is a journalist, and that means that she is very able to present complex information and arguments clearly, and pick out what the most important parts of an issue are. The result is a fascinating book. I hope you enjoy the interview. NB: Although the book is already out in Britain, the paperback version is being published in the US on May 8th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies