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#FeesMustFall and Its Aftermath: Violence, Wellbeing, and the Student Movement in South Africa

Thierry M. Luescher, Angelina Wilson Fadiji, Keamogetse G. Morwe, Antonio Erasmus, Tshireletso S. Letsoalo, and Seipati B. Mokhema

At first a small student protest against high fees at Wits University and the lack of government funding for higher education, the #FeesMustFall movement spread quickly, and violently, to other South African campuses. #FeesMustFall tells the gripping story of the student activists' experiences during a year-long struggle that began in October 2015; it is also a story of the sacrifices that    More >

#FeesMustFall and Its Aftermath: Violence, Wellbeing, and the Student Movement in South Africa

A Critical History of Southern Rhodesia

Gardner Thompson

Gardner Thompson offers a fresh history of British rule in Southern Rhodesia, from the first colonial settlements in Mashonaland in the 1890s to the establishment of the country's sovereignty as Zimbabwe. After tracing developments in the early decades, Thompson turns to the post–World War II debate about the colony's future direction—which pitted progressive settlers    More >

A Critical History of Southern Rhodesia

A New History of Formal Schooling in South Africa, 1658–1910: An Education of Contradictions

Crain Soudien, Charlotte Fischer, and Michael Cross, with Peter Kallaway

In a narrative that goes far beyond a simple retelling of events, the authors dissect the origins of educational inequality in South Africa by framing the narrative within the country's broad socioeconomic history from the time of the Dutch settlements in the 1650s to the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.    More >

A New History of Formal Schooling in South Africa, 1658–1910: An Education of Contradictions

A Peacekeeper in Africa: Learning from UN Interventions in Other People’s Wars

Alan Doss

Alan Doss offers a rare window into the real world of UN peacekeeping missions in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Doss's story is one of presidents and prelates, warlords and warriors, heroes and villains, achievements and disappointments—and innocent people caught in the midst of deadly violence. As he shares his front-line    More >

A Peacekeeper in Africa: Learning from UN Interventions in Other People’s Wars

A Political Biography of Selby Msimang: Principle and Pragmatism in the Liberation Struggle

Sibongiseni M. Mkhize

Henry Selby Msimang (1886-1982), one of the great South Africans of the twentieth century, was a founding member of the African National Congress in 1912,  president of the pioneering Industrial and Commercial Workers Union in the 1920s-1930s, general secretary of the All African Convention in the 1930s, a member of the Natives Representative Council and provincial secretary of the Natal ANC    More >

A Political Biography of Selby Msimang: Principle and Pragmatism in the Liberation Struggle

A Social History from Below: Life Stories from Wentworth, South Africa

Gregory Houston, Heidi van Rooyen, Bronwynne Anderson, Darian Smith, Theresa Saber Jr., Maree Harold, and Marilyn Couch

Tracing the social history of a historically Colored South African township, the authors of this revealing collection present the edited transcripts of life-story interviews with twenty-five current and past residents of Wentworth. This history from below resoundingly refutes unfounded generalizations about the townships' residents, illustrating the diversity of the community's members    More >

A Social History from Below: Life Stories from Wentworth, South Africa

A Taste of Bitter Almonds: Perdition and Promise in South Africa

Michael Schmidt

The year 1994 symbolized the triumphal defeat in South Africa of almost three-and-a-half centuries of racial separation—dating from 1659, the year the Dutch East India Company planted a bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of the company's Cape outpost. But, Michael Schmidt reminds us, for the majority of people in what remains one of the world’s most unequal    More >

A Taste of Bitter Almonds: Perdition and Promise in South Africa

Adventures in Zambian Politics: A Story in Black and White

Guy Scott

As Miles Larmer writes in the foreword, Adventures in Zambian Politics is unlike any political memoir you have ever read. It is ... A political history of Zambia from colonial times to the present. A revealing insider account of politics and government within a modern African state. A story about race in Africa. A chronicle of the rise and fall of two improbable political allies who wanted to    More >

Adventures in Zambian Politics: A Story in Black and White

Africa in the Global Economy

Richard E. Mshomba

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! This in-depth analysis of the role of international trade in Africa focuses on four central issues: the trade policies of the sub-Saharan African countries; the impact of GATT and its successor, the World Trade Organization; the impact of specific GATT/WTO agreements; and the viability of regional economic integration as a strategy for trade and    More >

Africa in the Global Economy

Africa's Emerging Maize Revolution

Derek Byerlee and Carl K. Eicher, editors

Although relatively new to Africa, maize has recently replaced cassava as the continent's most important food crop, and increased maize production has the potential of helping to reverse Africa's food crisis. This book presents the results of extensive field research on the maize economy in six African countries, as well as broader-based studies of maize research and extension (R&E),    More >

Africa's Emerging Maize Revolution

Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures

David K. Leonard and Scott Straus

This thoughtful discussion probes the international roots of Africa's civil conflicts and lackluster economies. Analyzing an unwitting system that creates a set of incentives inimical to development, the authors offer a new way of thinking about Africa's development dilemmas and the policy options for addressing them.   Weak states, aid dependence, crushing debt, and enclave    More >

Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures

Africa-US Relations: Strategic Encounters

Donald Rothchild and Edmond J. Keller, editors

Reflecting the debate between state-centered and human-security approaches to security strategy, Africa-US Relations explores the interactions between the US and African countries in a wide spectrum of key arenas. The authors range from such traditional security issues as peacekeeping and terrorism to concerns with HIV/AIDS, environmental degradation, aid policies, and international trade. Their    More >

Africa-US Relations: Strategic Encounters

Africa: Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow

Pierre Englebert

Winner of the 2010 African Politics Conference Group Best Book Award! Though the demise of one or another African state has been heralded for nearly five decades, the map of the continent remains virtually unchanged. By and large, these states have failed to protect and promote the interests of their citizens; yet they endure. Asking why, Pierre Englebert carefully articulates the manner    More >

Africa: Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow

Africa’s Cause Must Triumph: The Collected Writings of A.P. Mda

Robert Edgar and Luyanda ka Msumza, editors

A founding member of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, A.P. Mda was known for his passionate advocacy of African nationalism and his support for armed struggle against apartheid in the 1950s. Many of his peers considered him the foremost intellectual and strategist of their generation. Robert Edgar and Luyanda ka Msumza trace Mda's life from his early years through his three    More >

Africa’s Cause Must Triumph: The Collected Writings of A.P. Mda

Africa’s Insurgents: Navigating an Evolving Landscape

Morten Bøås and Kevin C. Dunn, editors

Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerrilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are    More >

Africa’s Insurgents: Navigating an Evolving Landscape

Africa’s International Relations: Balancing Domestic and Global Interests

Beth Elise Whitaker and John F. Clark

Comprehensive and engaging, this timely introduction to Africa's international relations explores how power, interests, and ideas influence interactions both among the continent's states and between African states and other actors in the global arena. How has history shaped the international relations of African states and peoples? What role does identity play? How are foreign policies    More >

Africa’s International Relations: Balancing Domestic and Global Interests

Africa’s New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations

Rita Kiki Edozie and Moses Khisa

The African Union's threat to lead African states' mass withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in 2008 marked just one of many encounters that demonstrate African leaders' growing confidence and activism in international relations. Rita Kiki Edozie and Moses Khisa explore the myriad ways in which the continent's diplomatic engagement and influence in the global arena has    More >

Africa’s New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations

Africa’s Totalitarian Temptation: The Evolution of Autocratic Regimes

Dave Peterson

Disappointment with the ability of democracy to deliver economic rewards in much of Africa—and with the persistence of instability, corruption, and poor governance in democratic regimes—has undermined democracy's appeal for many on the continent. At the same time, many external actors are expressing sympathy for regimes that have demonstrated an ability to impose stability and    More >

Africa’s Totalitarian Temptation: The Evolution of Autocratic Regimes

African Actors in International Security: Shaping Contemporary Norms

Katharina P. Coleman and Thomas K. Tieku, editors

What impact have African actors had on perceptions of and responses to current international security challenges? Are there international peace and security norms with African roots? How can actors that lack the power and financial resources of Western states help to shape prevailing conceptions of appropriate behavior in international politics? Addressing these questions, the authors of    More >

African Actors in International Security: Shaping Contemporary Norms

African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors, 3rd edition

Todd J. Moss and Danielle Resnick

Both authoritative and accessible, African Development introduces the issues, actors, and institutions at play in development trajectories across sub-Saharan Africa. This new edition, thoroughly updated, includes an entirely new chapter devoted to key demographic trends in the region, especially rapid urbanization and the distinct "youth bulge." There is also a review of major    More >

African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors, 3rd edition

African Foreign Policies: Power and Process

Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Terrence Lyons, editors

This comprehensive treatment of the interplay between domestic and international politics analyzes efforts by African states to manage their external relations amid seismic shifts in the internal, regional, and global environments. The authors' nuanced analysis of foreign policy issues and themes traverses the continent, identifying patterns of change, examining constraints, and giving careful    More >

African Foreign Policies: Power and Process

African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine

Morten Bøås and Kevin C. Dunn, editors

At the center of many of Africa's violent conflicts are movements that do not seem to fit any established theories of armed resistance. African Guerrillas offers new models for understanding these movements, eschewing one-dimensional explanations. The authors build on—and in some cases debate—insights provided in Christopher Clapham's groundbreaking work. They find a new    More >

African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine

African Literature and Intellectual Histories: Reflecting on Ntongela Masilela’s Work

Busani Ngcaweni, editor

Ntongela Masilela (1948–2020) is perhaps best known for collecting, archiving, and expounding on the works of South African and other African intellectuals—most notably members of the New African Movement—who historically had been overlooked or forgotten. Busani Ngcaweni presents a selection of Masilela's most important essays, prefacing each with an illuminating introduction    More >

African Literature and Intellectual Histories: Reflecting on Ntongela Masilela’s Work

African Lives: An Anthology of Memoirs and Autobiographies

Geoff Wisner, editor

African Lives, a pioneering anthology of memoirs and autobiographical writings, lets the people of Africa speak for themselves—telling stories of struggle and achievement that have the authenticity of lived experience. The anthology presents selections from the work of many of Africa's finest writers and most significant personalities from across the continent and spanning several    More >

African Lives: An Anthology of Memoirs and Autobiographies

African Novels in the Classroom

Margaret Jean Hay, editor

Some of the best college teachers have found novels to be extremely effective assignments in courses addressing various aspects of African studies. Here, two dozen of those teachers describe their favorite African novels—drawn from all over the continent—and share their experiences in using them in the classroom. Each contributor discusses why a particular novel works well with    More >

African Novels in the Classroom

African Security and the African Command: Viewpoints on the US Role in Africa

Terry Buss, Joseph Adjaye, Donald Goldstein, and Louis Picard, editors

In 2007, the Bush administration created a new military presence in Africa—AFRICOM (US Africa Command)—which has been vigorously debated ever since. Some see AFRICOM as the answer to an African security system crippled by a lack of resources, widespread politicization, and institutional weakness. Others claim that the program is nothing more than another attempt by the US to secure its    More >

African Security and the African Command: Viewpoints on the US Role in Africa

African Voices: In Search of a Decolonial Turn

Siphamandla Zondi

What does it mean to decolonize knowledge ... in the university, the school, the library, the museum? In the context of this question, Siphamandla Zondi explores the contributions of African thinkers and actors to what Paul Tiyambe Zeleza calls recentering Africa in discussions about major African phenomena. His book is sure to stimulate further conversations about the many other African voices    More >

African Voices: In Search of a Decolonial Turn

Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda

Peter Uvin

Winner of the African Studies Association’s Herskovits Award! Aiding Violence expresses outrage at the contradiction of genocide in a country considered at the time by Western aid agencies to be a model of development. Peter Uvin reveals how aid enterprises reacted—or failed to react—to the 1990s dynamics of militarization and polarization in Rwanda that resulted in mass    More >

Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda

Alex La Guma: The Exile Years, 1966–1985

Christopher J. Lee, editor

Looking beyond the novels and short stories of acclaimed South African writer Alex La Guma (1924–1985), Christopher Lee focuses on the nonfiction that La Guma produced during his years living in exile. Lee has gathered and annotated a plethora of La Guma's political commentary and other nonfiction pieces, along with transcripts of interviews, to show how the writer’s life and    More >

Alex La Guma: The Exile Years, 1966–1985

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Herbert M. Howe

This original work examines three potential options for increasing state security in contemporary Africa: regional military groupings, private security companies, and a continent-wide, professional peacekeeping force. Howe explores these alternatives within the larger context of why African militaries have proven incapable of handling new types of insurgency; how the failed intervention in    More >

Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States

Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990-2019

Mcebisi Ndletyana

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! Observers reacted with shock to the 2016 African National Congress electoral loss in Port Elizabeth, once an ANC stronghold. Yet, argues Mcebisi Ndletyana, that loss should not have come as a surprise—nor, perhaps, should the subsequent absence of reforms within the party. Ndletyana explores power and politics in Port Elizabeth since 1990, tracing the    More >

Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990-2019

Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution

Sharlene Swartz

Drawing on insights drawn from extensive interviews with South Africans in all walks of life, Sharlene Swartz introduces the practical concept of social restitution—the actions and attitudes that people can undertake in dialogue with each other to "make things right."    More >

Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution

Archie Mafeje

Bongani Nyoka

Noted for his academic prowess, quick wit, and tireless struggle both for pan-Africanist ideals and for the political emancipation of South Africans living under apartheid, Archie Mafeje has been hailed as a giant not only as a thinker, but also as a human being. His work addressed a broad range of issues critical to sub-Saharan Africa, among them agrarian reform, democracy, the politics of    More >

Archie Mafeje

Bab el-Oued [a novel]

Merzak Allouache, translated by Angela M. Brewer

Bored housewives, kept in seclusion, smuggling in Harlequin romances. Modish young men transformed into Islamic militants. A baker unwittingly caught in a web of intrigue, an imam whose faith is tested by urban corruption, a lonely divorcee accused of prostitution—all take part in Merzak Allouache's novel of a society on the brink of crisis. Allouache tells the story of the people of    More >

Bab el-Oued [a novel]

Baladi Women of Cairo: Playing with an Egg and a Stone

Evelyn A. Early

Traditional, urban Egyptian women—baladi women—extol themselves with the proverb, "A baladi woman can play with an egg and a stone without breaking the egg." Evelyn Early illustrates this and other expressions of baladi women's self-identity by observing and recording their everyday discourse and how these women—who consider themselves destitute yet    More >

Baladi Women of Cairo:  Playing with an Egg and a Stone

Belt and Road Initiative: Alternative Development Path for Africa

Thokozani Simelane and Lavhelesani Managa, editors

At the heart of China's Belt and Road Initiative lies the creation of not only an economic land belt linking countries on the original Silk Road through Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, but also a maritime "road" linking its port facilities with the African coast. In Belt and Road Initiative, contributors from China and Africa consider how China's vision could support    More >

Belt and Road Initiative: Alternative Development Path for Africa

Better Governance and Public Policy: Capacity Building for Democratic Renewal in Africa

Dele Olowu and Soumana Sako, editors

Exploring the relationship between governance and development policy, the authors of this collection describe recent governance changes in a range of African countries, analyze the consequences of those changes for institutional reforms, and highlight the challenges involved in consolidating ongoing processes of economic liberalization and democratization.    More >

Better Governance and Public Policy: Capacity Building for Democratic Renewal in Africa

Beyond Plunder: Toward Democratic Governance in Liberia

Amos Sawyer

Can a stable political order be established in Liberia in the aftermath of the collapse of governance and a horrendous period of pillage and carnage? Amos Sawyer argues that the task can indeed be accomplished—but only in the context of new constitutional arrangements and governing institutions that differ markedly from those of the past. Sawyer draws deeply on his experience as head of    More >

Beyond Plunder: Toward Democratic Governance in Liberia

Biko: Philosophy, Identity, and Liberation

Mabogo Percy More

Why write a new book about Steve Biko? Are there untapped lessons to be learned or principles to be gleaned from Biko’s work? As he answers these questions, Mabogo More presents an unparalleled critique of Biko's philosophy and social theory. Perhaps most important, he shows how Biko's ideas speak to the present human condition, especially the black condition, not only in South    More >

Biko: Philosophy, Identity, and Liberation

Black Academic Voices: The South African Experience

Grace Khunou, Edith Phaswana, Katijah Khoza-Shangase, and Hugo Canham, editors

Why are so many black scholars in South Africa leaving the academy? In what ways does subtle—and sometimes overt—racial exclusion continue to be part of the everyday university experience for those who remain? In the context of ongoing debates in South Africa about the need for transformation and decolonization in the realm of higher education, Black Academic Voices presents personal    More >

Black Academic Voices: The South African Experience

Black Womanism in South Africa: Princess Emma Sandile

Janet Hodgson

Janet Hodgson tells the inspiring story of Emma Sandile (1842-1892)—Princess Emma, as she was known in southern African colonial circles—in a narrative that reads like a novel, but is all true, based on archival sources and extensive fieldwork. Tracing the life of this pioneer of black womanism, Hodgson explores Sandile’s early years, her education, and her many achievements    More >

Black Womanism in South Africa: Princess Emma Sandile

Borders, Nationalism, and the African State

Ricardo René Larémont, editor

Tackling a fundamental question in the study of contemporary African politics, Borders, Nationalism, and the African State systematically and comparatively examines the impact of colonial borders on the intertwined trajectories of ethnic conflict and state development. The authors combine case studies (Congo, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan) with thematic chapters to provide a vivid story of    More >

Borders, Nationalism, and the African State

Broadcasting Democracy: Radio and Identity in South Africa

Tanja Bosch

The media—and especially radio—continue to be positioned at the center of debates about identity and cultural production in postapartheid South Africa. Tanja Bosch explores the diverse world of South African radio, focusing on the roles that various formats and stations play, as well as the ways in which these stations are in an important sense "broadcasting democracy."    More >

Broadcasting Democracy: Radio and Identity in South Africa

Business and the State in Southern Africa: The Politics of Economic Reform

Scott D. Taylor

Why are productive, development-supporting relations between business and government still so rare in Africa? Scott Taylor addresses this question, examining state-business coalitions as they emerge, and endure or collapse, in three representative countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Taylor illuminates three possible trajectories: an abortive state-business coalition, as in Zambia; the    More >

Business and the State in Southern Africa: The Politics of Economic Reform

Capital Cities in Africa: Power and Powerlessness

Simon Bekker and Göran Therborn, editors

Capital cities today remain central to both nations and states. They host centers of political power, not only national, but in some cases regional and global as well, thus offering major avenues to success, wealth and privilege. For these reasons capitals simultaneously become centers of 'counter-power,' locations of high-stakes struggles between the government and the opposition. This    More >

Capital Cities in Africa: Power and Powerlessness

Caught in the Storm [a novel]

Seydou Badian, translated by Marie-Thérèse Noiset

A gentle novel about the enduring conflict between young and old, new and traditional, foreign and native. Badian tells the story of a village family in an African country under French rule. The family's father and the eldest son revere the customs of their ancestors, while the younger children are strongly attracted by European ways and ideas. The daughter, Kany, has fallen in love with her    More >

Caught in the Storm [a novel]

Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa

Loretta E. Bass

Although both media and scholarly attention to the use of child labor has focused on Asia and Latin America, the highest incidence of the practice is found in Africa, where one in three children works. Loretta Bass presents a comprehensive, systematic study of child labor in sub-Saharan Africa. Bass offers a window on the lives of Africa's children workers, a view informed by her analysis of    More >

Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa

Children at Work: Child Labor Practices in Africa

Anne Kielland and Maurizia Tovo

In this accessible treatment of child labor in Africa, straightforward prose is enriched throughout with photographs that give a human face to the issues involved. The authors draw on sources ranging from scholarly studies to children's own voices. After providing a general background to the topic—debunking myths in the process—they describe the work typically done by African    More >

Children at Work: Child Labor Practices in Africa

Children of a Bitter Harvest: Child Labour in the Cape Winelands

Susan Levine

Sharing more than a hundred interconnected stories, Susan Levine memorably documents moments in the everyday lives of children who worked in the heart of South Africa's wine industry between 1996 and 2010. The children introduced in the book—if they survived AIDS—are now young adults in a new South Africa that ostensibly offers possibilities for overcoming the shackles of race    More >

Children of a Bitter Harvest: Child Labour in the Cape Winelands

China in Africa: In Zheng He’s Footsteps

Li Xinfeng, translated by Shelly Bryant

Some six centuries ago, the great Chinese explorer and diplomat Zheng He set sail to blaze a trail across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa. In 2002, Li Xinfeng set out to find traces of Zheng's several journeys in Africa. The result is the compelling China in Africa: In Zheng He’s Footsteps. Beginning on Kenya's Pate Island, Li's comprehensive research led him to    More >

China in Africa: In Zheng He’s Footsteps

China's New Role in Africa

Ian Taylor

Ian Taylor explores the nature and implications of China's burgeoning role in Africa, arguing that Beijing is using Africa not only as a source of needed raw materials and potential new markets, but also to bolster its own position on the international stage. After tracing the history of Sino-African relations, Taylor addresses key current issues: What will be the long-term consequences,    More >

China's New Role in Africa

Civil Society and the State in Africa

John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan, editors

This seminal book examines the potential value of the concept of civil society for enhancing the current understanding of state-society relations in Africa. The authors review the meanings of civil society in political philosophy, as well as alternative theoretical approaches to employing the concept in African settings. Considering both the patterns of emerging civil society in Africa and issues    More >

Civil Society and the State in Africa

Civil War in African States: The Search for Security

Ian S. Spears

How do disputants in Africa's civil wars—rebel movements, ethnic groups, state leaders—find security in the midst of anarchic situations? Why do some rebel movements pursue a secessionist agenda while others seek to overthrow the existing government? Under what circumstances will insurgents agree to share power? Proposing answers to these questions, Ian Spears offers a fresh    More >

Civil War in African States: The Search for Security

Civil Wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1960-2010

Emizet François Kisangani

Wars of secession, ethnic wars, rebellions, and mutinies have been part of the political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo since the country became independent in 1960.  Why? And what can we learn from this seemingly unending series of internal conflicts?  Emizet François Kisangani explores these fundamental questions within a rigorously systematic and uniquely    More >

Civil Wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1960-2010

Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority

I. William Zartman, editor

The collapse of states—a phenomenon that goes far beyond rebellion or the change of regimes to involve the literal implosion of structures of authority and legitimacy—has until now received little scholarly attention, despite the fact that a number of states have actually ceased to exist as entities in the aftermath of the collapse of the dominant international system. The authors of    More >

Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority

Connected Lives: Families, Households, Health, and Care in South Africa

Nolwazi Mkhwanazi and Lenore Manderson, editors

What impact do economic, demographic, and social change have on the everyday health and well being of families and households in contemporary South Africa? The authors explore this question in twenty-nine case studies of people with diverse backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, class, sex and gender, age, and location, considering the influence of these factors across the life course.    More >

Connected Lives: Families, Households, Health, and Care in South Africa

Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges

Omano Edigheji, editor

In this seminal collection, an interdisciplinary team of distinguished scholars draw on relevant conceptual models and compare experiences from other countries to show how South Africa could most successfully build a democratic developmental state. Macro- and microeconomic questions, as well as the institutional, governance, and social challenges facing South Africa are analyzed, as are the    More >

Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges

Contemporary African Politics and Development: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1981-1990

complied by Vijitha Mahadevan with the staff of UCLA's African Bibliography Project

This invaluable research tool is a systematic, comprehensive analysis of books, monographs, journals, and edited volumes dealing with African political affairs and socioeconomic development. The bibliography contains more than 16,000 citations (both English and French sources are included) covering material published from 1981 through 1990. Chapters in edited volumes are treated as individual    More >

Contemporary African Politics and Development: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1981-1990

Contemporary Campus Life: Transformation, Manic Managerialism and Academentia

Keyan G. Tomaselli

Keyan Tomaselli's accessible critique of market-driven neoliberalism is offered as a metaphor to analyze the excesses, contradictions, and obstructions in contemporary university governance. With incisive satirical humor, Tomaselli delves into the quirks of  education administrative systems to show how manic management negatively affects teaching, research, science, and    More >

Contemporary Campus Life: Transformation, Manic Managerialism and Academentia

Coping with Crisis in African States

Peter M. Lewis and John W. Harbeson, editors

Although large-scale conflicts, political upheavals, and social violence are common problems throughout Africa, individual countries vary greatly in both their susceptibility to these crises and their capacities for responding effectively. What accounts for this variance? How do crises emerge, and how are they resolved? When are unexpected events most likely to spiral into crisis? Are there    More >

Coping with Crisis in African States

Crafting the New Nigeria: Confronting the Challenges

Robert I. Rotberg, editor

Is Nigeria, with its vast wealth in both human and natural resources, on the path to realizing its enormous potential? Or is it in danger of becoming a failed state? Crafting the New Nigeria considers the challenges that the country's leadership now faces, offering rich—and sobering—analyses of Nigeria's current political and economic systems.    More >

Crafting the New Nigeria: Confronting the Challenges

Creative Cities in Africa: Critical Architecture and Urbanism

Noëleen Murray and Jonathan Cane, editors

How have politicians, planners, and power brokers deployed—or not—notions of creativity across the history of African cities from the colonial era to the present? The contributors to Creative Cities in Africa address this question as they frame critical approaches to architecture and urbanism and explore new and alternative forms of writing, thinking, and making the city.    More >

Creative Cities in Africa: Critical Architecture and Urbanism

Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 1, 1795–1914

André Odendaal, Krish Reddy, Christopher Merrett, and Jonty Winch

The first of its kind for any sport in South Africa: a cricket love story of epic dimensions, full of sometimes shocking details. Cricket and Conquest fundamentally revises long-established foundational narratives of early South African cricket,  reaching beyond whites-only mainstream histories to integrate at every stage and in every region the experiences of black, as well as women,    More >

Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 1, 1795–1914

Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka

James Gibbs, editor

Distinguished scholars analyze the plays, poetry, and prose of Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Introductory essays trace Soyinka’s career and place his work in the general context of African literature; the book also includes a definitive bibliography of his work and a chronology of his publications.    More >

Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka

Culture, Development, and Public Administration in Africa

Ogwo Jombo Umeh and Greg Andranovich

Using southern African nations as an example, the authors argue that emerging societies are poor today thanks to the over reliance on non-local models. Practitioners must consider local cultures—-languages, symbols, customs, and rituals—in developing effective administrative practices. They must absorb the experiences of people who know first-hand the dynamics and conditions in these    More >

Culture, Development, and Public Administration in Africa

Decentralization in Africa: The Paradox of State Strength

J. Tyler Dickovick and James S. Wunsch, editors

In recent decades, laws passed by African governments to transfer power and resources to local and other subnational governments (SNGs) have been greeted by many in the policy community with enthusiasm. But how far has decentralization really gone in Africa? How well does it work? And what have been its consequences? The authors of Decentralization in Africa work within a common conceptual    More >

Decentralization in Africa: The Paradox of State Strength

Decentralization in Uganda: Explaining Successes and Failures in Local Governance

Gina M.S. Lambright

Why do some African local governments perform well, while others fail to deliver even the most basic services to their constituents? Gina Lambright finds answers to this question in her investigation of the factors that contribute to good—and those that result in ineffective—institutional performance at the district level in Uganda. Examining the conditions under which local    More >

Decentralization in Uganda: Explaining Successes and Failures in Local Governance

Decolonisation as Democratisation: Global Insights into the South African Experience

Siseko H. Kumalo, editor

The authors of this thought-provoking book explore the ways in which decolonization protects the democratic ideal of academic freedom—and at the same time caution against using that freedom to protect interests seeking to undermine the transformation of higher education. Basing their discussion on the South African experience, the authors emphasize the responsibility of scholars to ensure    More >

Decolonisation as Democratisation: Global Insights into the South African Experience

Democratic Participation in Rural Tanzania and Zambia: The Impact of Civic Education

Satu Riutta

Satu Riutta asks whether civic education initiatives—to which huge sums of donor funds and effort are devoted annually—actually promote political participation among the rural poor in nascent democracies. Does raising awareness about citizen rights and responsibilities increase participation? Are the effects of civic education greatest on collective or individual forms of    More >

Democratic Participation in Rural Tanzania and Zambia: The Impact of Civic Education

Democratic Reform in Africa: The Quality of Progress

E. Gyimah-Boadi, editor

After years of reform efforts in Africa, much of the optimism over the continent's prospects has been replaced by widespread "Afropessimism." But to what extent is either view well founded? Democratic Reform in Africa plumbs the key issues in the contemporary African experience—including intrastate conflict, corruption, and the development of civil society—highlighting    More >

Democratic Reform in Africa: The Quality of Progress

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Tyrone August

Dennis Brutus (1924-2009) is perhaps best known for his powerful poems chronicling the suffering of apartheid in South Africa. But he was also a political activist whose voice helped to mobilize and intensify opposition to injustice and oppression worldwide. Tyrone August traces the many facets of Brutus's life from his childhood until his exile from South Africa in 1966. Placing the    More >

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Development, Social Policy, and Community Action: Lessons From Below

Leila Patel and Marianne S. Ulriksen, editors

Solutions to poverty and inequality are often designed, implemented, and evaluated in a top-down manner. The authors of this book turn things around, using a range of research approaches to show how social-assistance policies can be crafted to support local communities to effect positive change. Though based on studies conducted in the urban area of Doornkop, South Africa, the work applies equally    More >

Development, Social Policy, and Community Action: Lessons From Below

Divided Country: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 2, 1914–1950s

André Odendaal, Krish Reddy, and Christopher Merrett

When the Proteas play today, they bat for all South African cricketers—but there were once seven different cricket associations, each claiming to be to be "national." Divided Country continues the story begun in Cricket and Conquest, detailing not only how racism became so entrenched in South African cricket in 1914-1959, but also how segregation in the sport is tied to broader    More >

Divided Country: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 2, 1914–1950s

Djibouti: A Political History

Samson Abebe Bezabeh

Wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, at the intersection of the world’s busiest shipping routes, Djibouti has long been a global geostrategic hub. Samson Bezabeh traces the tortuous political history of this tiny country since its independence from France in 1977. Bezabeh challenges much conventional wisdom as he dissects Djibouti's trials and tribulations. Focusing on the    More >

Djibouti: A Political History

Doguicimi [a novel]

Paul Hazoume, translated by Richard Bjornson

Although he was a staunch supporter of French colonialism, Paul Hazoumé in his realistic, sweeping narrative captures the customs and traditions—the soul—of Dahomey. This historical novel, set in the first half of the nineteenth century, depicts a proud and powerful nation at a turning point in its long pattern of wars, slave trade, and human sacrifices—practices that, in    More >

Doguicimi [a novel]

Domestic Politics and Drought Relief in Africa: Explaining Choices

Ngonidzashe Munemo

Ngonidzashe Munemo challenges the conventional wisdom that African governments lack the technical capacity and political will to respond to drought and the threat of famine. Through a comparative analysis of three politically disparate countries—Botswana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe—Munemo demonstrates that differences in the ways that governments face similar drought-induced food crisis    More >

Domestic Politics and Drought Relief in Africa: Explaining Choices

Drinking with Ghosts: The Aftermath of Apartheid’s Dirty War

Michael Schmidt

Veteran journalist Michael Schmidt explores of the dark corners of South Africa's past, tracing the strains of secrecy, violence, and abuse of privilege that reverberate even today in the country's  deeply unequal society. The book is also a testament to Schmidt's career as a journalist: his uncompromising quest to uncover the truth in what he finds shines through on every page.    More >

Drinking with Ghosts: The Aftermath of Apartheid’s Dirty War

East Africa and the Horn: Confronting Challenges to Good Governance

Dorina A. Bekoe, editor

Both the obstacles to governance and the opportunities for democratization confronted in East Africa—with its geostrategic importance, porous borders, governments heavily dependent on foreign aid, and some of Africa's longest running conflicts—provide valuable insights into how good governance policies can be implemented effectively throughout the developing world. East Africa and    More >

East Africa and the Horn: Confronting Challenges to Good Governance

Economic Cooperation in Africa: In Search of Direction

Ahmad A.H.M. Aly

Regionalism, Ahmad Aly argues persuasively, is the most appropriate strategy for the achievement of autonomous, self-sustained development in Africa. Aly traces the causes of the failures thus far of attempts at economic cooperation on the continent, citing in particular the adoption of inappropriate integration schemes, the multiplicity of overlapping arrangements, the dominance of politics,    More >

Economic Cooperation in Africa:  In Search of Direction

Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: Causes and Consequences

Stephanie M. Burchard

After decades of experimentation with various forms of dictatorship and autocracy, most sub-Saharan African countries adopted multiparty elections in the 1990s—a development widely celebrated as a sign that the region was moving toward democracy. This embrace of elections, however, has often been accompanied by unanticipated violence, raising important questions: Are violent elections a    More >

Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: Causes and Consequences

Encyclopedia of South Africa

Krista Johnson and Sean Jacobs, editors

This authoritative, comprehensive reference work covers South Africa's history, government and politics, law, society and culture, economy and infrastructure, demography, environment, and more, from the era of human origins to the present. Nearly 300 alphabetically arranged entries provide information in a concise yet thorough way. In addition, a series of appendixes present a wealth of    More >

Encyclopedia of South Africa

Equitable Rural Socioeconomic Change: Land, Climate Dynamics, Technological Innovation

Peter T. Jacobs

With more and more global economic wealth and power resting with fewer and fewer people, and given the acute land inequalities in the rural areas of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, how valid are the dominant theories about the nature of rural livelihoods? How can the intricacies of the economic and social transformations that are unfolding in the rural areas of developing countries best be    More >

Equitable Rural Socioeconomic Change: Land, Climate Dynamics, Technological Innovation

Ethics, Politics, Inequality: New Directions

Narnia Bohler-Muller, Crain Soudien, and Vasu Reddy, editors

Multilayered inequalities and a sense of insecurity have long been hallmarks of South African life—but now have been exacerbated by the uncertainties of Covid-19. Ethics, Politics, Inequality reflects on a range of political and socioeconomic interventions, based on an ethics of care, needed to help South Africans navigate the roiling currents of the "new normal." This latest    More >

Ethics, Politics, Inequality: New Directions

Explaining Successes in Africa: Things Don’t Always Fall Apart

Erin Accampo Hern

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! What does it take for African countries to achieve political and economic successes? Scholarship on Africa tends to focus on the barriers to reaching desired outcomes. While recognizing that these barriers are very real, Erin Hern takes a contrary, unabashedly optimistic approach: rather than treating countries that perform well as "miracles," she    More >

Explaining Successes in Africa: Things Don’t Always Fall Apart

Family Matters: Family Cohesion, Values, and Wellbeing (South African Social Attitudes Survey)

Zitha Mokomane, Benjamin Roberts, Jare Struwig, and Steven Gordon

There has been considerable controversy and debate in South Africa (and elsewhere) in recent years over an apparent crisis of the family, including appeals for a return to "traditional" family values. To promote a better understanding of this supposed crisis, Family Matters draws on public opinion data to explore the diverse realities of contemporary family life in South Africa and    More >

Family Matters: Family Cohesion, Values, and Wellbeing (South African Social Attitudes Survey)

Fatima Meer

Shireen Hassim

Fatima Meer, a South African academic, public intellectual, and activist, was a tireless fighter for social justice and human rights—for which she variously suffered banning and detention by the apartheid government. After the end of apartheid, she declined a parliamentary seat, choosing instead to continue her advocacy work. She did, however, subsequently serve the ANC government in several    More >

Fatima Meer

Female Circumcision in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change

Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund, editors

Though the issue of female genital cutting, or "circumcision," has become a nexus for debates on cultural relativism, human rights, patriarchal oppression, racism, and Western imperialism, the literature has been separated by diverse fields of study. In contrast, this volume brings together contributors from anthropology, public health, political science, demography, history, and    More >

Female Circumcision in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change

Fire: Six Writers from Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde

Donald Burness

Because of, and at times in spite of, the distinct quality of Portuguese colonial policy, an original and vibrant lusophone literature exists today in Africa. Burness introduces the too-little- known work of Angola’s Luandino Viera, Agostinho Neto, Geraldo Bessa Victor, and Mario Antonio, Cape Verde’s Baltasar Lopes, and Mozambique’s Luis Bernardo Honwana.    More >

Fire:  Six Writers from Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde

Fixing African Economies: Policy Research for Development

Lucie Colvin Phillips and Diery Seck, editors

When African countries embarked on the first round of structural adjustments in the 1980s and 1990s, there was little opportunity to first determine what programs would work where—instead, governments reluctantly implemented policies that were imposed by international financial institutions and based on theoretical models. The ensuing process was eventful—and the results    More >

Fixing African Economies: Policy Research for Development

Frantz Fanon

compiled by Leo Zeilig

This book is part of a unique series that presents the reader with the original writings and relevant source texts of liberation heroes of Africa, together with a coherent contextual framework and analysis of their legacy.    More >

Frantz Fanon

From Cape to Congo: Southern Africa's Evolving Security Challenges

Mwesiga Baregu and Christopher Landsberg, editors

From the ongoing war in Angola, to sporadic instability in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, to the conflict in Congo, to issues of land reform and the ravages of AIDS, southern Africa faces varied and complex threats to its peace and security. The authors of From Cape to Congo assess the region's major security challenges, as well as the roles of local, regional, and external actors in managing them.    More >

From Cape to Congo: Southern Africa's Evolving Security Challenges

Globalization in Africa: Recolonization or Renaissance?

Pádraig Carmody

Is globalization good for Africa? Pádraig Carmody explores the evolving nature and impact of globalization throughout the continent, as China, the US, and other economic powers exert their influence. Drawing especially on the cases of Chad, Sudan, and Zambia, Carmody considers whether the resource curse that has for so long plagued Africa can become a blessing. He also evaluates the    More >

Globalization in Africa: Recolonization or Renaissance?

Governing Africa’s Changing Societies: Dynamics of Reform

Ellen M. Lust and Stephen N. Ndegwa, editors

What is the cumulative impact of the immense social, economic, and political changes that Africa has undergone in recent decades? What opportunities do those changes present to improve the lives of the continent's citizens? Countering the prevailing mood of pessimism in the face of disappointed expectations, the authors of Governing Africa's Changing Societies demonstrate the    More >

Governing Africa’s Changing Societies: Dynamics of Reform

Granting Justice: Cash, Care, and the Child Support Grant

Tessa Hochfeld

Inspired by the scholarship of US critical theorist and feminist Nancy Fraser, Granting Justice draws on the stories of six South African women who rely on financial assistance programs for their, and their children's, survival. Hochfeld’s pathbreaking study dives deeply into issues of both social and gender justice—and shows how institutional failure can affect individual lives.    More >

Granting Justice: Cash, Care, and the Child Support Grant

Great Ideas for Teaching About Africa

Misty L. Bastian and Jane L. Parpart, editors

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! This award-winning book presents a wealth of ideas for teaching African studies in a variety of disciplines. The authors present a wide range of approaches: from preparing African cuisines as a way to understand people-environment relations, to using the Internet to develop a virtual art history exhibit; from viewing an African film or assigning a novel to    More >

Great Ideas for Teaching About Africa

Hack with a Grenade: An Editor’s Backstories of SA News

Gasant Abarder

Hack with a Grenade offers a newspaper editor's perspective on the characters that shape South Africa's psyche. In a book that is one part humor and one part social commentary, Gasant Abarder draws on his broad experiences as a journalist to tackle such issues as religion, prejudice, and injustice. Sharing tales of his encounters with people from all walks of life, he slyly encourages    More >

Hack with a Grenade: An Editor’s Backstories of SA News

Haile Selassie: His Rise, His Fall

Haggai Erlich

With scholars far from agreement in their opinions of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie, the questions remain: Who was Haile Selassie? What was the secret of his survival across half a century—and how did he come to be a virtual exile in his own country, then murdered, the last emperor in a centuries-old dynasty? Haggai Erlich's Haile Selassie, full of fresh perspectives and insights,    More >

Haile Selassie: His Rise, His Fall

Hands Off Our Grants: Defending the Constitutional Right to Social Protection

Black Sash

In 2012, South Africa's social welfare system came under attack. Enormous sums of money were siphoned from South African Social Security Agency accounts—allegedly with the complicity of government officials—affecting the livelihoods of millions. But then, in what became a hugely successful grass-roots movement, the beneficiaries of the social grants mobilized behind Black    More >

Hands Off Our Grants: Defending the Constitutional Right to Social Protection

Harambee: The Spirit of Innovation in Africa

Mike Bruton

How many inventions come from Africa? How many African countries have produced their own cars? Why is the M-Pesa mobile money system so important? Is the nature of innovation in Africa different from what we find elsewhere? In Harambee ("working together"), Mike Bruton addresses these and related questions as he remarkably discusses more than 800 inventions and innovations by more than    More >

Harambee: The Spirit of Innovation in Africa

Human Rights and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in South Africa

Rachel Adams, et al.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), characterized by the growing utilization of new technologies, unquestionably is ushering in innovative solutions to myriad development challenges. At the same time, as the authors of Human Rights and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in South Africa demonstrate, these new technologies can also come with drawbacks, particularly in relation to fundamental human    More >

Human Rights and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in South Africa

Human Trafficking in South Africa

Philip Frankel

South Africa has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the top-ten worldwide routes for trafficking in persons, or TIP, a massive phenomenon fueled by poverty, forced migration, government corruption, and digital communications that decrease the distance between victim and perpetrator. In his deep study of human trafficking in South Africa, Philip Frankel explores the nature of TIP,    More >

Human Trafficking in South Africa

Humanitarian Crises and Intervention: Reassessing the Impact of Mass Media

Walter C. Soderlund, E. Donald Briggs, Kai Hildebrandt, and Abdel Salam Sidahmed

Why has the international community been unwilling, time and time again, to address the humanitarian crises that have killed millions of people in postcolonial states and forced many millions more to leave their homes and livelihoods? Focusing on the role of major media outlets, the authors of Humanitarian Crises and Intervention provide a unique look at violent conflicts in Angola, Burundi,    More >

Humanitarian Crises and Intervention: Reassessing the Impact of Mass Media

Humanitarianism Under Fire: The US and UN Intervention in Somalia

Kenneth R. Rutherford

Humanitarianism Under Fire is a candid, detailed narrative of the international humanitarian intervention in Somalia—an intervention that became a deadly test of the UN’s ability to carry out a peace operation using armed force. Kenneth Rutherford presents new information gleaned from interviews and intensive research in five countries. His evidence shows how Somalia became a    More >

Humanitarianism Under Fire: The US and UN Intervention in Somalia

Identity in Algerian Politics: The Legacy of Colonial Rule

J.N.C. Hill

J.N.C. Hill explores the multiple causes of two decades of profound political change, social and economic upheaval, and bitter conflict in postindependence Algeria. Hill focuses on the relationship between identity and sociopolitical stability as he examines the trajectory of Algerian nation building.  How did French colonization and the war of liberation transform Algerian identities? How    More >

Identity in Algerian Politics: The Legacy of Colonial Rule

Inclusive Development in Africa: Transformation of Global Relations

Vusi Gumede

What can—and should—be done to achieve effective development in Africa? Addressing this fundamental question, the authors offer specific suggestions emphasizing the need to both radically transform global power relations and to reform domestic socioeconomic policies.    More >

Inclusive Development in Africa: Transformation of Global Relations

Independence and Revolution in Portuguese-Speaking Africa: Selected Articles and Interviews, 1980-1986

Tomaz Aquino de Bragança, edited and annotated by Marco Mondaini and Colin Darch

Tomaz Aquino de Bragança, a close adviser to former Mozambican president Samora Machel, dedicated his life to the liberation struggles of southern Africa. Before his death in a plane crash (along with President Machel) in 1986, he was a journalist, an academic, a diplomat, and a public intellectual known for his skill in sensitive and discreet political negotiation, most notably his role in    More >

Independence  and  Revolution in Portuguese-Speaking Africa: Selected Articles and Interviews, 1980-1986

Indigenous Systems and Africa’s Development

Vusi Gumede, Mammo Muchie, and Ajebush Shafi, editors

In an effort to solve the enduring puzzle of slow economic and social development in Africa, the contributors to Indigenous Systems and Africa's Development advocate for a paradigm shift in both thinking and practice that would integrate indigenous knowledge systems into the development process.    More >

Indigenous Systems and Africa’s Development

Inside African Politics, 2nd edition

Kevin C. Dunn and Pierre Englebert

The second edition of Inside African Politics, updated throughout to reflect political developments across the continent, not only provides thorough coverage of the full range of core topics, but also furthers an awareness and understanding of key theoretical issues and current debates. Drawing on their extensive teaching and fieldwork experience, Pierre Englebert and Kevin Dunn    More >

Inside African Politics, 2nd edition

Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan

Haggai Erlich

Can Christianity and Islam coexist? Or are Muslims and Christians destined to delegitimize and even demonize each other? Tracing the modern history of the region where the two religions first met, and where they are engaged now in active confrontation, Haggai Erlich finds legacies of both tolerance and militancy. Erlich's analysis of political, military, and diplomatic developments in the    More >

Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan

Ivoirien Capitalism: African Entrepreneurs in Cote d'Ivoire

John Rapley

Though studies of capitalism in Africa traditionally focus on the activities of foreign investment, in Cote d'Ivoire capitalist development has been largely the work of a domestic class of entrepreneurs. This book traces the history of Cote d'Ivoire's capitalist development, beginning with early European contact and bringing the story up to the present decade. Drawing on new data,    More >

Ivoirien Capitalism: African Entrepreneurs in Cote d'Ivoire

Joseph Conrad: Third World Perspectives

Robert D. Hamner, editor

Issues of racial discrimination, imperialist exploitation, and accuracy of observation have long interested Conrad’s critics. As a European writing about imperialism in exotic lands, Conrad offered a vivid, but subjective account of the confrontations between the cultures and peoples of East and West. Though some in Africa have condemned his novels as racist, the books have been used as    More >

Joseph Conrad:  Third World Perspectives

Judicial Politics in New Democracies: Cases from Southern Africa

Peter VonDoepp

That judicial institutions are important for emerging democracies leaves little room for debate. But to what extent do judiciaries in these new democracies maintain their autonomy? And what accounts for varying levels of autonomy across states? Drawing on the cases of Malawi, Zambia, and Namibia—and offering a novel analytical framework—Peter VonDoepp illuminates why power holders    More >

Judicial Politics in New Democracies: Cases from Southern Africa

Kenya's Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan

Makau Mutua

Tracing the trajectory of postcolonial politics, Makau Mutua maps the political forces that have shaped contemporary Kenya. He also critically explores efforts on the part of both civil society and the political opposition to reform the state. Analyzing the tortuous efforts since independence to create a sustainable, democratic state, he uses the struggle over constitutional reform as a window for    More >

Kenya's Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan

Labour Struggles in Southern Africa, 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union

David Johnson, Noor Nieftagodien, and Lucien van der Walt, editors

The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)—the largest black political organization in southern Africa before the 1940s—was active in six African colonies, as well as in global trade union networks. Labour Struggles in Southern Africa provides fresh perspectives on the ICU, exploring its record in the 1920s and 1930s and assessing its achievements and failures in relation    More >

Labour Struggles in Southern Africa, 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union

Language, Culture and Decolonisation

David Boucher, editor

Fanon has written that colonialism gets under the skin of the colonized by taking control of a people’s history, language, and culture—and denigrating all three. Exploring this reality, the authors of Language, Culture and Decolonisation draw on history, politics, philosophy, and literary studies to put forth a range of arguments about the importance of indigenous languages in the    More >

Language, Culture and Decolonisation

Lauretta Ngcobo: Writing as the Practice of Freedom

Barbara Boswell, editor

When Lauretta Ngcobo died in 2015, Africa lost a significant literary talent, freedom fighter, and feminist voice. Ngcobo was one of the pioneering writers who first published novels in English from the vantage point of black women. Along with Bessie Head and Miriam Tlali, she showed the world, through her fiction, what it was like to be a black woman in apartheid South Africa. Barbara Boswell    More >

Lauretta Ngcobo: Writing as the Practice of Freedom

Learning for Living: Towards a New Vision for Post-School Learning in South Africa

Ivor Baatjes, editor

In the context of South Africa's deepening inequalities, widespread poverty, and increasing unemployment rates, the need for a new approach to adult education is becoming urgent. Learning for Living issues a call to action to meet that need. Drawing on the lived experiences of people throughout the country, the book challenges policymakers, researchers, educators, and civil society    More >

Learning for Living: Towards a New Vision for Post-School Learning in South Africa

Legends, Sorcerers, and Enchanted Lizards: Door Locks of the Bamana of Mali

Pascal James Imperato, with an foreword by Robert J. Koenig

The Bamana people are known for their rich artistic traditions, including the creation of masks, statues, door locks, headdresses, and ritual and utilitarian objects: Their door locks are among the most remarkable of all African art. Sculpted of wood in a rich variety of forms, they depict mythological and historical figures, social events, and representational figures—crocodiles, lizards,    More >

Legends, Sorcerers, and Enchanted Lizards: Door Locks of the Bamana of Mali

Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies

Joel D. Barkan, editor

A puzzle underpins this groundbreaking study of legislative development in Africa: Why are variations in the extent of legislative authority and performance across the continent only partially related, if at all, to the overall level of democratization? And if democratization is not the prime determinant of legislative authority, what is? Exploring the constraints that have retarded the    More >

Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies

Liberia's Civil War: Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Regional Security in West Africa

Adekeye Adebajo

Liberia's Civil War offers the most in-depth account available of one of the most baffling and intractable of Africa's conflicts. Adekeye Adebajo unravels the tangled web of the conflict by addressing four questions:  Why did Nigeria intervene in Liberia and remain committed throughout the seven-year civil war? To what extend was ECOMOG's intervention shaped by Nigeria's    More >

Liberia's Civil War: Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Regional Security in West Africa

Local Governance in Africa: The Challenges of Democratic Decentralization

Dele Olowu and James S. Wunsch
with contributions by Joseph Ayee, Gerrit M. Deslooverer, Simon Fass, Dan Ottemoeller, and Paul Smoke

Why have some decentralization reforms led to viable systems of local governance in Africa, while others have failed? Exploring this question, the authors outline the key issues involved, provide historical context, and identify the factors that have encouraged or discouraged success.   Detailed studies of seven African states are grounded in a common analytical framework, one that    More >

Local Governance in Africa: The Challenges of Democratic Decentralization

Making Institutions Work in South Africa

Daniel Plaatjies, editor

Making Institutions Work in South Africa places the structures and processes of institutionalization at the center of debates about democracy, state, and society in South Africa. As they explore the factors that facilitate, and those that impede, strong, well-functioning institutions, the contributors share three core assumptions: institutions are the pillars of a constitutional democracy; they    More >

Making Institutions Work in South Africa

Making Sense of Governance: Empirical Evidence from Sixteen Developing Countries

Goran Hyden, Julius Court, and Kenneth Mease

Although governance has been the focus of a considerable body of literature on democratic transitions and consolidation, data to support the claim that the concept is a useful one has been lacking. Now, however, Making Sense of Governance clearly shows the utility of research on governance, presenting empirical evidence from sixteen developing countries.   The authors focus on six arenas:    More >

Making Sense of Governance: Empirical Evidence from Sixteen Developing Countries

Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory, Politics

Marshall S. Clough

The still contentious issues of the Mau Mau revolt are thrown into stark relief by the Mau Mau Memoirs, personal accounts by Kenyans of the events of that violent period. Marshall Clough deftly analyzes these memoirs, making a strong case for not only their historical value, but also their role in the struggle to define Mau Mau within Kenyan historiography and politics. Systematically studying    More >

Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory, Politics

Mau Mau's Daughter: A Life History

Wambui Waiyaki Otieno, edited and with an introduction by Cora AnnPresley

Wambui Waiyaki Otieno, Kenyan activist and wife of the late S.M. Otieno, recounts her involvement in nearly a half-century of East African politics: her years in the Mau Mau movement, her role in women’s organizations under the Kenyatta and the Moi regimes, and the controversy surrounding her husband’s burial. Her personal narratives and anecdotes paint not only a detailed    More >

Mau Mau's Daughter: A Life History

Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy

Noel Foster

Why did a clique of Mauritanian officers risk their lives to overthrow the autocrat they had served for twenty years, only to cede power to an elected civilian? And having won acclaim for their commitment to a process of democratic transition, why did most of these officers join a year later to overthrow the newly elected president? Had the international community been fooled by a military    More >

Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy

Media and Citizenship: Between Marginalisation and Participation

Anthea Garman and Herman Wasserman, editors

How central are the media to the functioning of a democracy? Is democracy primarily about citizens using their votes? Does the expression of their voices necessarily empower citizens? These are among the questions addressed in Media and Citizenship. Challenging assumptions about the relationship between the media and democracy in highly unequal societies like postapartheid South Africa, the    More >

Media and Citizenship: Between Marginalisation and Participation

Migrant Labour After Apartheid: The Inside Story

Leslie J Bank, Dorrit Posel, and Francis Wilson, eds.

A large portion of South Africa's population remains double rooted—many South Africans live in an urban area, but also have access to a rural homestead to which they periodically return and often retire. The authors of Migrant Labour After Apartheid explore this rural-urban reality, showing that internal migrancy continues to have profound impacts on social cohesion, family life, gender    More >

Migrant Labour After Apartheid: The Inside Story

Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers: Negotiating Meaning and Making Life in Bloemfontein, South Africa

Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo, editors

Against the backdrop of Bloemfontein in the heartland of South Africa—but with lessons that translate to immigrant communities on every continent and at every socioeconomic level—the authors of Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers argue that migrants are challenged by a violent categorization that is often nihilistic, insistently racial, and continuously significant to the organization of    More >

Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers: Negotiating Meaning and Making Life in Bloemfontein, South Africa

Miriam Tlali: Writing Freedom

Pumla Dineo Gqola

The first black woman in South Africa to publish a novel, Miriam Tlali (1933-2017) was also an internationally acclaimed playwright, author of short stories, essayist, and not least, activist against apartheid and patriarchy. Her work was routinely banned in South Africa; though translated into many languages, during the apartheid era it was available only illicitly in her own country. Pumla    More >

Miriam Tlali: Writing Freedom

Moral Eyes: Youth and Justice in Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa

Sharlene Swartz, Anye Nyamnjoh, Emma Arogundade, Jessica Breakey, and Abioseh Bockarie

Grappling with issues of privilege and injustice in four African countries, the authors of Moral Eyes draw on extensive interviews with university students to demonstrate how injustices not only evolve over time, but also find a place within the collective memory of young people. Their work, encompassing questions of religion, language, ethnicity, and race, powerfully demonstrates how injustice    More >

Moral Eyes: Youth and Justice in Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa

Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime

Aili Mari Tripp

Aili Mari Tripp takes a close, clear-sighted look at Ugandan politics since 1986, when Yoweri Museveni became the country's president. Museveni's exercise of power has been replete with contradictions: steps toward political liberalization have been controlled in ways that further centralize authority; and despite claims of relative peace and stability, Uganda has been plagued by two    More >

Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime

Muslim Women Throughout the World: A Bibliography

Michelle Kimball and Barbara R. von Schlegell

This comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography covers nearly 3,000 English-language books and articles on Muslim women throughout the world. Works are listed alphabetically by author, with an extensive index including both geographical and topical headings. A special feature of the bibliography is its annotated list of the 50 "most highly recommended" books and articles; the result of a    More >

Muslim Women Throughout the World: A Bibliography

Ndabaningi Sithole: A Forgotten Founding Father

Tinashe Mushakavanhu, editor

Seismic shifts in Zimbabwe's politics since the 2017 demise of Robert Mugabe have generated renewed interest in Ndabaningi Sithole, the first president of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Tinashe Mushakavanhu brings this vanguard revolutionary back to center stage through a selection of his important political and literary works. The result is an important biographical mapping of    More >

Ndabaningi Sithole: A Forgotten Founding Father

Negotiating the Net in Africa: The Politics of Internet Diffusion

Ernest J. Wilson III and Kelvin R. Wong, editors

Why do national patterns of Internet expansion differ so greatly throughout Africa? To what extent do politics trump technology? Who are the "information champions" in the various African states? Addressing these and related questions, Negotiating the Net in Africa explores the politics, economics, and technology of Internet diffusion across the continent.   The "Negotiating    More >

Negotiating the Net in Africa: The Politics of Internet Diffusion

Nepad: Toward Africa's Development or Another False Start?

Ian Taylor

Enthusiastically embraced by African presidents, G-7 leaders, and the UN General Assembly alike, the New Partnership for Africa's Development has been advanced as the vehicle that will vitalize the continent's economies. Ian Taylor critically explores just what Nepad is, and what potential it has—or lacks—for promoting African development.    More >

Nepad: Toward Africa's Development or Another False Start?

Neva Again: Hip Hop Art, Activism, and Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Adam Haupt, Quentin Williams, H. Samy Alim, and Emile Jansen, editors

The culmination of decades of work on hip hop culture and activism, Neva Again weaves together the many varied and rich voices of the dynamic South African hip hop scene. The contributors—including scholars, activists, and the artists themselves—present a powerful reflection of the potential of youth art, culture, music, language, and identities to shape both politics and world views.    More >

Neva Again: Hip Hop Art, Activism, and Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

New African Thinkers: Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development

Olga Bialostocka, editor

In New African Thinkers, young scholars from across Africa discuss their vision for the social, political, and economic future of their continent. A unifying element running throughout their work is the argument that culture—defined broadly as a way of life, system of values and controls, and modes of practice and expression—lies at the heart of a reimagined Africa: a place of    More >

New African Thinkers: Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development

New African Thinkers: Drivers of Change

Olga Bialostocka and Thokozani Simelane, editors

Emerging scholars from across Africa focus on the multiple innovative ways through which Africa has been confronting challenges. The chapters cover peace and security including democracy and governance, gender and global change, development for the people, as well as science and technology. The book grew out of the Ninth African Young Graduates and Scholars conference which is rooted in the    More >

New African Thinkers: Drivers of Change

No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective

Giovanni Carbone

Are political parties an essential element of democracy? Or can a no-party system constitute a viable democratic alternative? Giovanni Carbone examines the politics of Museveni’s Uganda to illustrate the achievements, contradictions, and limitations of participatory politics in the absence of partisan organizations. At a time when multiparty reforms were sweeping the globe, Uganda opted    More >

No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective

Noel Chabani Manganyi: Being-While-Black-and-Alienated in Apartheid South Africa

Mabogo Percy More

This is fundamentally a book about race, antiblack racism, and the related problem of the alienation of human beings from one another, from their bodies, and from themselves, all within the context of apartheid and postapartheid South Africa. Mabogo More critically engages with the work of Noel Chabani Manganyi (1940–), a prolific author and South Africa's first Black clinical    More >

Noel Chabani Manganyi: Being-While-Black-and-Alienated in Apartheid South Africa

Now That We Are Free: Coloured Communities in a Democratic South Africa

Wilmot James, Daria Caliguire, and Kerry Cullinan, editors

Under apartheid, coloured people in South Africa were not "white enough." Now, some fear that they are not "black enough" to benefit from a democratic South Africa, as perhaps reflected in the recent local elections in the Western Cape. How in fact do coloured communities fit into the "rainbow nation" described by President Nelson Mandela in the opening chapter of    More >

Now That We Are Free: Coloured Communities in a Democratic South Africa

Ntsikana: His Great Hymn and His Enduring Legacy on Black Consciousness

Janet Hodgson

Janet Hodgson traces the life of Xhosa prophet Ntsikana (1780–1821) from his birth through his years as a Christian convert, evangelist, and composer of enduring hymns. Ntsikana is known as one of the first Christians to adapt Christian ideas to African culture, writing hymns in isiXhosa and translating concepts into terms that resonated with his Xhosa community. Even today, his hymns are    More >

Ntsikana: His Great Hymn and His Enduring Legacy on Black Consciousness

Nubian Women of West Aswan: Negotiating Tradition and Change, 2nd edition

Anne M. Jennings

In the decade-and-a-half since the first edition of this book was written, there have been dramatic changes both in the town of Aswan and among the devoutly Muslim Nubians of the of West Aswan. Anne Jennings’s revised and updated ethnography reflects those changes and also incorporates new material from archaeological/historical research and new literature on the impact of tourism, the work    More >

Nubian Women of West Aswan: Negotiating Tradition and Change, 2nd edition

On the Shoulder of Marti

Donald Burness

This collection of fiction and poetry, written by members of the military forces sent by Castro to help defeat the South Africa-backed regime in Angola, reflects the realities of painful years in Africa. The material is laced together by Burness’ narrative of past and present wars and rebellions.    More >

On the Shoulder of Marti

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

Renske Doorenspleet and Lia Nijzink, editors

Is the dominance of one political party a problem in an emerging democracy, or simply an expression of the will of the people? Why has one-party dominance endured in some African democracies and not in others? What are the mechanisms behind the varying party-system trajectories? Considering these questions, the authors of this collaborative work use a rigorous comparative research design and rich    More >

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

Opening the South African Economy: Barriers to Entry and Competition

Thando Vilakazi, Sumayya Goga, and Simon Roberts, editors

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! What does it take for local entrepreneurs to effectively compete in South Africa? What factors affect entry and participation in sectors where established firms have existed for years? And with what impact?  Addressing these questions, Opening the South African Economy highlights the challenges posed by concentration, inequality, and exclusion across the    More >

Opening the South African Economy: Barriers to Entry and Competition

Opioids in South Africa: Towards a Policy of Harm Reduction

Thembisa Waetjen, editor

From over-the-counter cough syrups and prescribed painkillers to heroin and fentanyl bought on the street, the misuse of opioids has ignited widespread debates about drug policy reform. In this book, the contributors draw on a range of disciplinary perspectives to focus on these issues in South Africa. Experts in medicine, pharmacology, and the social sciences and humanities, together with    More >

Opioids in South Africa:  Towards a Policy of Harm Reduction

Our Sun Will Rise

Amelia Blossom House, with drawings by Selma Waldman

A collection of forty-two poems that depict the pain and pathos, the political and personal struggles that marked South Africa during apartheid. House is acutely sensitive to the sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive tensions of her homeland—and to the hope that must accompany any movement toward liberation. Eighteen full-page drawings by Selma Waldman are presented as visual responses to    More >

Our Sun Will Rise

Partnerships in Action: University–School–Community

Patti Silbert, Roshan Galvaan, and Jonathan Clark, eds.

Within the context of extreme social inequality, Partnerships in Action explores a range of  university-school-community partnerships in South Africa. The authors' rich and dynamic accounts of interdisciplinary collaboration show not only how schooling can be improved, but also progress made toward achieving social justice.    More >

Partnerships in Action: University–School–Community

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Lise Storm

What are the prospects for democracy in North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring? Addressing that question, Lise Storm provides a rich analysis of party politics in the region. Storm focuses on Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, examining the key characteristics and political dynamics of each country's party system as they have evolved over time. Her research sheds light not only on the    More >

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Patrice Lumumba

compiled by Leo Zeilig

This book is part of a unique series that presents the reader with the original writings and relevant source texts of liberation heroes of Africa, together with a coherent contextual framework and analysis of their legacy.    More >

Patrice Lumumba

Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL

'Funmi Olonisakin

The first in a series of "inside" histories, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone relates how a small country—one insignificant in the strategic considerations of the world powers—propelled the United Nations to center stage in a crisis that called the UN's very authority into serious question; and how the UN mission in Sierra Leone was transformed from its nadir into what is now    More >

Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL

Pentecostal Charismatic Women: Constructions of Femininity in Alexandra Township

Tumi Mampane

Drawing on her own experiences, Tumi Mampane provides deep insights into the daily lives of women in a South African Pentecostal community. Equally, she relates those insights to Black/African feminist and womanist theory. Her autoethnographic study exposes the complexities and contestations that exist not only in Charismatic discourses, but also in the relationships that the community's women    More >

Pentecostal Charismatic Women: Constructions of Femininity in Alexandra Township

Policing Africa: Internal Security and the Limits of Liberalization

Alice Hills

The use and abuse of political power in Africa has been closely related to the role and function of the police. Alice Hills explores the impact of the cautious moves toward liberalization across the continent both on policing systems and on the relationship between those systems and national development. Hills engages contemporary debates on security sector reform, governance, law and justice,    More >

Policing Africa: Internal Security and the Limits of Liberalization

Policing and Politics in Nigeria: A Comprehensive History

Akali Omeni

Close to the center of politics since the nineteenth century, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has grown to become the country’s main security agency. Akali Omeni traces the checkered record of the NPF, dissecting the intricacies of its evolution, structures, and missions—and showing how colonial- and military-era traditions continue to underpin its uneasy relationship with the general    More >

Policing and Politics in Nigeria: A Comprehensive History

Political Identity and African Foreign Policies

John F. Clark, editor

Although all African states suffer the same peripheral status in world politics, they display variation in their foreign policies. How can we account for this variation? What role, if any, do the political identities of ruling elites play? Can patterns be seen in personalist vs. one-party dominant vs. multiparty regimes? The authors of Political Identity and African Foreign Policies address these    More >

Political Identity and African Foreign Policies

Political Islam in West Africa: State-Society Relations Transformed

William F.S. Miles, editor

Long before the September 11 attacks galvanized Western attention on what has variously been called political Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, and Islamism, African nations with sizeable Muslim populations were experiencing significant transformations in the relationship between religion and state. Political Islam in West Africa explores those ongoing transformations in key countries of the Sahel    More >

Political Islam in West Africa: State-Society Relations Transformed

Political Parties in South Africa: Do They Undermine or Underpin Democracy?

Heather Thuynsma, editor

In the past several years, the dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) has strained South Africa's democracy and tested its institutions. Within that context, the authors of this collection offer a detailed assessment of the health of the country's political party system.     More >

Political Parties in South Africa: Do They Undermine or Underpin Democracy?

Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa, 3rd Edition

Naomi Chazan, Peter Lewis, Robert A. Mortimer, Donald Rothchild, and Stephen John Stedman

Recognized as the textbook on African politics, as well as an excellent resource for scholars, Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa analyzes the complexities and diversities of the African continent since independence. The authors provide a basic knowledge of political events; political structures, processes, problems, and trends; political economy; and international relations. Clearly    More >

Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa, 3rd Edition

Politics in Francophone Africa

Victor T. Le Vine

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! The fourteen countries in west and equatorial Africa that formed the heart of what was once France's African colonial empire?all independent now for more than four decades?still retain French as an official language, remain attached to French culture, and maintain political links with France. Each country, however, has developed its own distinctive brand of    More >

Politics in Francophone Africa

Politics in Southern Africa: Transition and Transformation, 2nd Edition

Gretchen Bauer and Scott D. Taylor

The developments of the past seven years are reflected throughout this thoroughly revised edition of Politics in Southern Africa. Bauer and Taylor systematically examine politics and society in the region. After introducing the themes that guide their analysis, in each of eight country studies they trace the country’s historical origins and then analyze state institutions, political    More >

Politics in Southern Africa: Transition and Transformation, 2nd Edition

Population Growth and Environmental Degradation in Africa

Ezekiel Kalipeni, editor

Population growth and environmental degradation are becoming increasingly important, and intertwined, issues in Southern Africa. The authors of this book warn that unless population growth is forestalled, the number of people in the region is likely to double in less than thirty years—placing enormous pressures on available farmland, job creation, shelter, educational systems, public    More >

Population Growth and Environmental Degradation in Africa

Post-School Education and the Labour Market in South Africa

Michael Rogan

In South Africa—with one of highest rates of youth unemployment and one of the most unequal societies in the world—training and education play critical roles in helping young people escape poverty and unemployment. Within this context, offering insights about the ways that young South Africans navigate through a host of postschool training and education options, the contributors to    More >

Post-School Education and the Labour Market in South Africa

Poverty and Inequality: Diagnosis, Prognosis, Responses

Crain Soudien, Vasu Reddy, and Ingrid Woolard, editors

Can the interconnected problems of poverty and inequality in South Africa be explained in ways that are distinctive from those that apply in other contexts and countries? How can efforts to solve these problems fruitfully move forward? Is taxation on wealth the answer? Addressing these and related questions, the authors provide a textured understanding of the multiple issues involved.    More >

Poverty and Inequality: Diagnosis, Prognosis, Responses

Power Politics in Zimbabwe

Michael Bratton

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! Zimbabwe's July 2013 election brought the country's "inclusive" power-sharing interlude to an end and installed Mugabe and ZANU-PF for yet another—its seventh—term. Why? What explains the resilience of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe? Tracing the country's elusive search for political stability across the decades, Michael    More >

Power Politics in Zimbabwe

Power Sector Reform and Regulation in Africa: Lessons from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia and Ghana

Joseph Kapika and Anton Eberhard

Discusses the historical evolution of the power sector, the development of power-sector reform policy and its implementation, the entry of IPPs and emergency electric suppliers, the performance of state-owned utilities, and independent regulation of the power sector in six African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia and Ghana.    More >

Power Sector Reform and Regulation in Africa: Lessons from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia and Ghana

Public Enterprise in Kenya: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why

Barbara Grosh

Central to the development strategies of virtually all the sub-Saharan economies, public enterprises are nonetheless perceived as inefficient and unprofitable. Barbara Grosh examines the public enterprise system in Kenya and shows that, while average performance has indeed been poor, there has been a broad range of results—from excellent to abysmal—and many firms have performed well    More >

Public Enterprise in Kenya:  What Works, What Doesn't, and Why

Qaddafi's Libya in World Politics

Yehudit Ronen

Libya's enigmatic Muammar Qaddafi demonstrated a perhaps unprecedented capacity for reinvention and survival, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. Yehudit Ronen traces Libya's sometimes tortuous trajectory in international affairs across the four decades of Qaddafi's leadership. Ronen addresses a range of critical issues: oil politics, foreign military adventurism, WMDs,    More >

Qaddafi's Libya in World Politics

Quality of Life and Wellbeing in South Africa

Vasu Reddy, Narnia Bohler-Muller, Zitha Mokomane, and Crain Soudien, editors

In this latest entry in HSRC's State of the Nation series, the authors focus on fresh perspectives on notions of the quality of life and wellbeing in South Africa. Their work reflects two fundamental arguments: that economic factors alone do not determine quality of life, and that typical concepts of income inequality do not adequately encompass such variables as race, gender, and culture. Not    More >

Quality of Life and Wellbeing in South Africa

Recovering Democracy in South Africa

Raymond Suttner

Raymond Suttner brings together the best of his recent work to offer both an in-depth engagement with the current challenges facing South Africa and a damning account of the politics of the Zuma era. Notably, despite his strongly argued criticism of the country’s present political order, he does not leave the reader with a sense of pessimism, but instead points to ways in which South    More >

Recovering Democracy in South Africa

Reflections: An Anthology of New Work by African Women Poets

Anthonia C. Kalu, Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, and Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, editors

This anthology of never-before-published poems showcases a new generation of African women poets, some familiar, some just beginning their literary careers. Their rich voices belie popular stereotypes, reflecting the diversity and dynamism of their environment. As they range across topics encompassing family and personal relationships, politics, war, and the ravages of famine and disease, they    More >

Reflections: An Anthology of New Work by African Women Poets

Renewing Workers’ Education: A Radical Vision

Linda Cooper and Sheri Hamilton, editors

Renewing Workers’ Education focuses on educational initiatives created by workers for workers across the employment spectrum. After documenting recent history and current practices related to workers' education in South Africa and beyond, the authors explore conceptual tools that can facilitate reflecting on, theorizing about, and effectively grappling with today's challenges.    More >

Renewing Workers’ Education: A Radical Vision

Resisting Radicalization: Exploring the Nonoccurrence of Violent Extremism

Morten Bøås, Gilad Ben-Nun, Ulf Engel, and Kari Osland, editors

Precarious living conditions across the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa create fertile ground for radical ideas. Yet, despite genuine grievances and legitimate grounds for anger, most people living in these regions are not radicalized and do not embrace ideas that lead to acts of violent extremism. Which raises the question ... why? To answer this question, the authors of Resisting    More >

Resisting Radicalization: Exploring the Nonoccurrence of Violent Extremism

Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in Africa: Beyond the Coup d’État

Moses Khisa and Christopher Day, editors

Though Africa historically has been the site of countless military coups d’état, civil-military relations across the continent have changed dramatically in recent years. What do these changes say about the military's ongoing role in Africa's political and social institutions? How useful are conventional models for understanding civil-military relations in the African    More >

Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in Africa: Beyond the Coup d’État

Richard Green in South African Film: Forging Creative New Directions

Keyan G. Tomaselli and Richard Green

Both a history and a critique of South Africa's film industry, this book recounts the long experience of filmmaker and producer Richard Green. Green's story—especially his work in forging the film initiative New Directions Africa—is emblematic of the struggles, negotiations, and competing ideologies that faced South Africa as it emerged from apartheid. He continues to be an    More >

Richard Green in South African Film: Forging Creative New Directions

Robben Island Rainbow Dreams: The Making of Democratic South Africa’s First National Heritage Institution

Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi, Noel Solani, André Odendaal, and Khwezi ka Mpumlwana, editors

Following the birth of democracy in South Africa in 1994, Robben Island, once a symbol of pain, injustice, and closed spaces, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a global symbol of the commitment to democracy, tolerance, and human dignity. In the years that followed, however, conflict marred the high hopes for this cherished location. Robben Island Rainbow Dreams offers a behind-the-scenes    More >

Robben Island Rainbow Dreams: The Making of Democratic South Africa’s First National Heritage Institution

Rwanda’s Popular Genocide: A Perfect Storm

Jean-Paul Kimonyo

Why did Rwanda's rural Hutus participate so massively, and so personally, in the country's 1994 genocide of its Tutsi population? Given all that has been written already about this horrific episode, is there still more that can be learned? Answering these questions, Jean-Paul Kimonyo's social and economic history explores at the deepest level the role both of power relations among    More >

Rwanda’s Popular Genocide: A Perfect Storm

Samora Machel: Leader and Liberator in Southern Africa

Colin Darch and Devid Hedges, editors

The life story of Samora Machel (1933–1986) reads like a compelling novel: humble beginnings, a rise through the ranks of the Frelimo anticolonial liberation movement, successes and failures as president of the new People's Republic of Mozambique, and death in a mysterious plane crash. Telling Machel’s extraordinary story through a biographical introduction and transcripts of    More >

Samora Machel: Leader and Liberator in Southern Africa

Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia: Islam, Christianity, and Politics Entwined

Haggai Erlich

What is the significance of Islam's growing strength in Ethiopia? And what is the impetus for the Saudi financing of hundreds of new mosques and schools in the country, the establishment of welfare organizations, and the spread of the Arabic language? Haggai Erlich explores the interplay of religion and international politics as it has shaped the development of modern Ethiopia and Saudi    More >

Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia: Islam, Christianity, and Politics Entwined

Season of Migration to the North [a novel]

Tayeb Salih, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies

Salih's shocking and beautiful novel reveals much about the people on each side of a cultural divide. A brilliant Sudanese student takes his mix of anger and obsession with the West to London, where he has affairs with women who are similarly obsessed with the mysterious East. Life, ecstasy, and death share the same moment in time. First published in Arabic in 1969.    More >

Season of Migration to the North [a novel]

Security and Politics in South Africa: The Regional Dimension

Peter Vale

In this analysis of South Africa's postapartheid security system, Peter Vale moves beyond a realist discussion of interacting states to examine southern Africa as an integrated whole.   Vale argues that, despite South Africa's manipulation of state structures and elites in the region for its own ends, the suffering endured under the apartheid regime drew the region together at the    More >

Security and Politics in South Africa: The Regional Dimension

Security Cooperation in Africa: A Reappraisal

Benedikt Franke

In the midst of the atrocities reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the seemingly constant strife in the Horn of Africa, and the ongoing violence in Darfur, how do we make sense of the simultaneous increase in interstate security cooperation in Africa? To what extent, and why, does this cooperation differ from previous initiatives? In what direction is it heading? Benedikt Franke assesses    More >

Security Cooperation in Africa: A Reappraisal

Security Dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes Region

Gilbert M. Khadiagala, editor

The site of genocide in Rwanda, recurrent cycles of communal massacre, deepening poverty, state fragmentation, and massive displacement of civilians, is Africa's Great Lakes region finally moving away from decades of decay and destruction, or is it fated to remain mired in interminable strife? The authors of Security Dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes Region explore the sources of conflict    More >

Security Dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes Region

Shattered Vision [a novel]

Rabah Belamri, translated by Hugh A. Harter

The violence of war leads to the euphoria of Algeria's newly won independence from France—and then quickly deteriorates into a harsh and cynical reality in this brutal yet lyrical autobiographical novel. Shattered Vision (first published in France as Le regard blesse) was awarded the Prix France Culture in 1987.    More >

Shattered Vision [a novel]

Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy

John L. Hirsch

Sierra Leone's bitter experience with civil war garnered international attention only after the May 1997 coup, though the conflict between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and successive governments had raged for at least a decade— against the backdrop of more than three decades of progressive state collapse. John Hirsch traces Sierra Leone's downward spiral, drawing on his first-hand    More >

Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy

Smart Aid for African Development

Richard Joseph and Alexandra Gillies, editors

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent on foreign aid to sub-Saharan Africa, a sure path to growth and development has not yet been found—and each new heralded approach has crumbled amid regrets and recriminations. The authors of Smart Aid for African Development provide critical assessments of the main components of foreign assistance, considering how smarter use can be made of    More >

Smart Aid for African Development

Snakes in Paradise: NGOs and the Aid Industry in Africa

Hans Holmén

Beginning in the 1980s, sub-Saharan Africa witnessed a veritable explosion of NGOs and CSOs engaged in efforts to develop the subcontinent. Often praised for their commitment, flexibility, close contact with grassroots movements and marginalized groups, these organizations have become the darlings of donors and the UN system. During the same period, however, rural Africa has sunk deeper into    More >

Snakes in Paradise: NGOs and the Aid Industry in Africa

Society, Research and Power: A History of the Human Sciences Research Council from 1929 to 2019

Crain Soudien, Sharlene Swartz, and Gregory Houston, editors

This scholarly reflection on state-based research commemorates the 90th anniversary of the National Bureau for Education and Social Research—South Africa's first public social research organization—and the 50th anniversary of its successor, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The contributors delve into the rich archives of the HSRC in all its iterations and, notably,    More >

Society, Research and Power: A History of the Human Sciences Research Council from 1929 to 2019

South Africa in Southern Africa: Domestic Change and International Conflict

Edmond J. Keller and Louis A. Picard, editors

South Africa in Southern Africa critically examines the dynamics of political change and conflict in South Africa in both the domestic and international arenas. The assumption that guides the book is that, in order to understand the process of change that is currently unfolding in South Africa, one must understand not only the patterns of race, class, clientelism, and culture inside the country,    More >

South Africa in Southern Africa: Domestic Change and International Conflict

South Africa's Struggle for Independent Education: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and the History of the Wilberforce Institute

Vusumuzi Rodney Kumalo

At the start of the twentieth century, newly urbanized South Africans struggled with mainstream missionary education and its associated oppression, segregation, displacement, and not least, disillusionment. They shared far-reaching educational aspirations in the rapidly growing, cosmopolitan Johannesburg in the aftermath of the 1899–1902 war. Vusumuzi Kumalo's insightful narrative    More >

South Africa's Struggle for Independent Education: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and the History of the Wilberforce Institute

South African Foreign Policy Review: Volume 3, Foreign Policy, Change and the Zuma Years

Lesley Masters and Jo-Ansie van Wyk, editors

Spanning the Mbeki and Zuma administrations, this volume of South African Foreign Policy Review explores questions of continuity and change. Among the topics covered are the roles of the foreign minister, special advisers, think tanks, and other domestic sources that shape foreign policy, as well as international issues such as strategic partnerships, the ICC, international trade, development    More >

South African Foreign Policy Review: Volume 3, Foreign Policy, Change and the Zuma Years

South African Foreign Policy Review: Volume 4, Ramaphosa and a New Dawn for South African Foreign Policy

Lesley Masters, Philani Mthembu, and Jo-Ansie van Wyk, editors

This latest volume of South African Foreign Policy Review assesses South Africa's foreign policy during the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa. Focusing on such themes as foreign policy leadership, policy architecture, diplomacy, national interests, and the country's bi- and multilateral relations, the authors also consider how South Africa can maintain—and even increase—its role    More >

South African Foreign Policy Review: Volume 4, Ramaphosa and a New Dawn for South African Foreign Policy

South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence, Behaviour, and Communication Survey, 2017

Leickness Simbayi, Khangelani Zuma, Nompumelelo Zungu, et al.

This study reports the results of the most recent in a series of cross-sectional surveys undertaken by a research consortium led by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The consortium includes local researchers from the South African Medical Research Council, National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Global Clinical and Viral Laboratories, and University of Cape Town, as well as    More >

South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence, Behaviour, and Communication Survey, 2017

State Legitimacy and Development in Africa

Pierre Englebert

Now Available in Paperback! Although it typically is taken for granted that African economies perform poorly, it is less well known that there are a small but significant number of success stories on the continent. What accounts for Africa's average stagnation, and for the wide regional variations in developmental fortunes? Englebert argues with compelling statistics and the liberal use of    More >

State Legitimacy and Development in Africa

State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa

Richard Joseph, editor

This seminal volume explores the most important dimensions of state formation and erosion, social conflict, and the gains and setbacks in democratization in contemporary Africa. The results of nearly a decade of research, reflection, and collegial interaction, the collection delineates the dominant patterns of political restructuring since the upheavals of the early 1990s.    More >

State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa

Studying While Black: Race, Education, and Emancipation in South African Universities

Sharlene Swartz, Alude Mahali, Relebohile Moletsane, Emma Arogundade, Nene Ernest Khalema, Adam Cooper, and Candice Groenewald

An intimate portrait of the university experiences of a diverse sample of South African students, Studying While Black highlights the centrality of both race and geography in the quest for education and, ultimately, emancipation. The book is the outcome of a five-year longitudinal qualitative study of eighty students from eight  universities. The authors, a team of researchers from the    More >

Studying While Black: Race, Education, and Emancipation in South African Universities

Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics

Joshua B. Forrest

The trend toward subnationalist autonomy—and away from the development of singular, state-centric political systems based on the Western model—is one of the most striking phenomena in Africa today. Joshua Forrest analyzes the expansion of ethnic subnationalist movements in the postcolonial period, the reasons behind their growth, and their implications for African politics. Forrest    More >

Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics

Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace

Ruth Iyob and Gilbert M. Khadiagala

The formal division in 2011 of Africa's largest state into two new states—Sudan (the Republic of the Sudan) and South Sudan (the Republic of South Sudan)—was the result of civil strife that had endured for generations. In the years leading up to this resolution, Sudan suffered from the failure of both regional and international actors to effectively come to terms with the scope of    More >

Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace

Surrogates of the State: NGOs, Development and Ujamaa in Tanzania

Michael Jennings

In Surrogates of the State Jennings explores the delicate relationship between development NGOs and the states they work in using his exhaustive and illuminating case study of Tanzania in the 1960s and 70s.  During that time Tanzania instituted the rural socialist Ujamaa program, resulting in the forced resettlement of 6 million people to villages, transforming the map of the country. Rather    More >

Surrogates of the State: NGOs, Development and Ujamaa in Tanzania

Tapping Philanthropy for Development: Lessons Learned from a Public-Private Partnership in Rural Uganda

Lorna Michael Butler and Della E. McMillan, editors

In telling the story of an innovative program based at Iowa State University (ISU), Lorna Michael Butler, Della McMillan, and their colleagues offer practical, step-by-step advice critical for any organization seeking to fund and manage multifaceted, public-private partnerships for development. The story begins when the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at ISU received large gifts from    More >

Tapping Philanthropy for Development: Lessons Learned from a Public-Private Partnership in Rural Uganda

Teaching the "Native": Behind the Architecture of an Unequal Educational System

Joseph Daniel Reilly

"In 2015 South African universities exploded. Statues fell, students protested, and the entire edifice of South African education was thrown into question. Teaching the Native provides an invaluable historical explanation for the controversies that currently bedevil South African education. Artfully written, with a keen eye for historical nuance and detail, Joseph Reilly takes us on an epic    More >

Teaching the "Native": Behind the Architecture of an Unequal Educational System

The Alhazai of Maradi: Traditional Hausa Merchants in a Changing Sahelian City

Emmanuel Gregoire, translated by Benjamin H. Hardy

The West African town of Maradi, capital of a prestigious nineteenth century Hausa chiefdom, became a trading center during the colonial period, and after Niger's independence in 1960, its prosperity and growth accelerated. Maradi's population increase (from 9,000 inhabitants in 1954 to nearly 100,000 by 1986) was accompanied by rapid social change, including the emergence of a rich    More >

The Alhazai of Maradi:  Traditional Hausa Merchants in a Changing Sahelian City

The ANC Underground in South Africa, 1950-1976

Raymond Suttner

It is widely assumed that the African National Congress essentially disappeared from South Africa after its banning in 1960 and the imprisonment of its leaders, until public support for it revived in the wake of the 1976 Soweto uprising. Raymond Suttner takes issue with that view. Drawing on extensive oral testimony, Suttner reveals how internally based activists, often working independently of    More >

The ANC Underground in South Africa, 1950-1976

The Arab World Upended: Revolution and Its Aftermath in Tunisia and Egypt

David B. Ottaway

After the autocratic regimes in the seemingly unassailable police states of Tunisia and Egypt suddenly collapsed in 2011, the Islamic parties that took over quickly succumbed in turn to further massive uprisings, this time by disaffected secularists and, in the case of Egypt, with the support of the army. What explains this? And why do the current regimes in both countries remain so    More >

The Arab World Upended: Revolution and Its Aftermath in Tunisia and Egypt

The BRICS in Africa: Promoting Development?

Funeka Y. April, Modimowabarwa Kanyane, Yul Derek Davids, and Krish Chetty, editors

The BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—have become a strong engine of South-South cooperation, contributing to a significant shift in the global balance of power. They also, taken as a whole, constitute Africa's largest trading partner. The authors of this new collection consider the potential of BRICS–Africa cooperation for promoting sustainable    More >

The BRICS in Africa: Promoting Development?

The Church and AIDS in Africa: The Politics of Ambiguity

Amy S. Patterson

Situating her analysis squarely within the context of debates about the role of religion in African politics and society, Amy Patterson systematically analyzes the efforts (and sometimes lack of effort) of Christian churches in shaping HIV/AIDS policy. Patterson considers how theological worldviews, material resources, historical interactions with the state, and global networks influence church    More >

The Church and AIDS in Africa: The Politics of Ambiguity

The City Where No One Dies [a novel]

Bernard Dadie, translated by Janis A. Mayes

In this witty and ironic reversal of the typical colonial travelogue, Dadié recounts the journey of a bemused African traveler who settles in Rome, continuing his inquiries into the fundamental nature of humankind. Part conqueror, part pilgrim, part worshipper, and part critic, the protagonist compares Roman and African customs, traditions, history, and above all,    More >

The City Where No One Dies [a novel]

The Congress Movement, Volume 1: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

Sylvia Neame

The Congress Movement, based on primary and secondary sources including some 80 interviews dating back to the early 1960s, uniquely combines narrative and analysis.  Volume 1 traces the unfolding of the congress movement from its beginnings early in the 20th Century and looks at socialist and other forces that played an integral part in its formation. The 1918-1920 upsurge, which included    More >

The Congress Movement, Volume 1: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

The Congress Movement, Volume 2: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

Sylvia Neame

The Congress Movement, based on primary and secondary sources including some 80 interviews dating back to the early 1960s, uniquely combines narrative and analysis. Volume 2 examines the intricate development of the ICU and the ANC in the second half of the 1920s. Various trends of reformism and radicalism affected these two organizations. This later led to the beginning of the breakup of the    More >

The Congress Movement, Volume 2: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

The Congress Movement, Volume 3: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

Sylvia Neame

The Congress Movement, based on primary and secondary sources including some 80 interviews dating back to the early 1960s, uniquely combines narrative and analysis. Volume 3 explores how the ANC emerges and stps into its primary role as a national liberation movement resulting from a complex process stretching from the 1920s to the beginning of the 1960s. A key theme in this context is the    More >

The Congress Movement, Volume 3: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961

The Cross and the River: Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Nile

Haggai Erlich

The ongoing Egyptian-Ethiopian dispute over the Nile waters is potentially one of the most difficult issues on the current international agenda, central to the very life of the two countries. Analyzing the context of the dispute across a span of more than a thousand years, The Cross and the River delves into the heart of both countries' identities and cultures. Erlich deftly weaves together    More >

The Cross and the River: Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Nile

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Economic Dimensions of War and Peace

Michael Nest, with François Grignon and Emizet F. Kisangani

Despite the prominent role that competition over natural resources has played in some of Africa's most intractable conflicts, little research has been devoted to what the economic dimensions of armed conflict mean for peace operations and efforts to reconstruct war-torn states. Redressing this gap, this volume analyzes the challenges that the war economy posed, and continues to pose, for    More >

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Economic Dimensions of War and Peace

The Drama of the Peace Process in South Africa: I Look Back 30 Years

Sylvia Neame

Historian Sylvia Neame portrays, from a unique vantage point, the unfolding of the peace process in South Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a scholar, a member of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, and a former prisoner of the apartheid regime, Neame weaves together her personal contributions with historical accounts to offer rare insight into the    More >

The Drama of the Peace Process in South Africa: I Look Back 30 Years

The Fabric of Dissent: Public Intellectuals in South Africa

Vasu Reddy, Narnia Bohler-Muller, Gregory Houston, Maxi Schoeman, and Heather Thuynsma, editors

What are public intellectuals? What is their role in social, cultural, political, and academic contexts? What compels them to put forward their ideas? The rich tapestry created in The Fabric of Dissent helps to answer these questions. Offering concise portraits of some seventy-five influential South African public intellectuals, past and present, the book not only showcases an astonishing array    More >

The Fabric of Dissent: Public Intellectuals in South Africa

The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo

John F. Clark

Why did the democratic experiment launched in the Republic of Congo in 1991 fail so dramatically in 1997? Why has it not been seriously resumed since then? In tackling these complex questions, John Clark provides a thorough analysis of more than fifteen years of Congolese politics. Clark explores a series of logical hypotheses regarding why democracy failed to take root in Congo, moving from    More >

The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo

The Fates of African Rebels: Victory, Defeat, and the Politics of Civil War

Christopher Day

What determines the outcome for rebels in contemporary African civil wars? How are "victory" and "defeat" measured?  Is there any connection between a rebel group's organization and its fate? What implications do the answers to these questions have for policymakers concerned with ongoing armed conflicts? Addressing these issues and more, Christopher Day explores the    More >

The Fates of African Rebels: Victory, Defeat, and the Politics of Civil War

The Gendered and Sexual Lives of South African Youth: Young People’s Stories of Identity

Floretta Boonzaier and Simone Peters, editors

Reflecting a concern with the high rates of gendered and sexual violence in South Africa, the authors of this innovative book explore the experiences of and identifications with gender and sexuality of a diverse group of young people, as well as how those experiences/identifications intersect with race, class, age, and place. The research presented in the book is based on the use of photovoice,    More >

The Gendered and Sexual Lives of South African Youth: Young People’s Stories of Identity

The Heritage of Islam: Women, Religion, and Politics in West Africa

Barbara Callaway and Lucy Creevey

Callaway and Creevey explore the impact of Islam on the lives of West African women, particularly (but not exclusively) in Nigeria and Senegal. Focusing on whether Islam acts as a barrier to women in the process of social change and development, they address a series of important questions: Is the pattern of training and education different for Muslim and non-Muslim girls? Comparatively, what is    More >

The Heritage of Islam:  Women, Religion, and Politics in West Africa

The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

Louis A. Picard and Thomas Mogale

In the transition from apartheid rule to democratic governance in South Africa, what has been the impact on South African society at its base—on the people in the country's cities, towns, villages, and farms? Louis Picard and Thomas Mogale offer answers to this fundamental question, tracing historical trends and measuring change (or the lack of it) in the dynamic between the promise of    More >

The Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa

The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society Since 1800, 3rd ed.

Bill Freund

This comprehensive yet accessible text critically traces the complex trajectory of African society, culture, economy, and politics across more than two centuries. Appearing nearly two decades after the previous edition was published, the third edition of The Making of Contemporary Africa has not only been revised throughout, but also includes two entirely new chapters: one specifically on the    More >

The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society Since 1800, 3rd ed.

The Media and Conflicts in Central Africa

Marie-Soleil Frère

This in-depth investigation of the role that local news media play in Central African conflicts combines theoretical analysis with case studies from nine African countries: Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Each case study presents a comprehensive discussion of media influences    More >

The Media and Conflicts in Central Africa

The Mediterranean Connection: Criminal Networks and Illicit Economies in North Africa

Phil Williams, Jason M. Blazakis, and Colin P. Clarke

Smuggling and trafficking activities have intensified throughout North Africa in recent years, threatening both fragile economies and human security. The authors of The Mediterranean Connection examine the nature of these illicit flows and the routes that they take across Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and beyond. As they explore the practices of criminal networks and what allows them to    More >

The Mediterranean Connection: Criminal Networks and Illicit Economies in North Africa

The Multilateral Development Banks: Volume 1, The African Development Bank

E. Philip English and Harris M. Mule

The multilateral banks are powerful forces in the international community, providing loans of more than $250 billion to developing countries over the last half-century. The best-known of these, the World Bank, has been studied extensively, but the "regional development banks" are little understood, even within their own geographic regions. This book looks specifically at the policies    More >

The Multilateral Development Banks: Volume 1, The African Development Bank

The Nile: Histories, Cultures, Myths

Haggai Erlich and Israel Gershoni, editors

Intercultural relations have revolved around the River Nile throughout recorded history: sharing the river's waters, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Sudanese have developed rich dialogues of mutual cultural enrichment, as well as misconceptions and conflicts. This volume represents a rigorous scholarly attempt to trace these complex relations, exploring the multifaceted representations of the Nile,    More >

The Nile: Histories, Cultures, Myths

The Novels of Alex La Guma: The Representation of a Political Conflict

Kathleen Balutansky

In this fresh look at the troubled, passionate work of an important South African writer and social critic, Balutansky explores Alex La Guma’s five novels in all their dimensions. Balutansky notes La Guma’s belief that, in order to lead a fulfilling existence, an individual must go beyond introspection and adopt a life that is organized around unity, caring, and sharing. She is    More >

The Novels of Alex La Guma: The Representation of a Political Conflict

The Political Economy of Contract Farming in Zimbabwe

Freedom Mazwi

Freedom Mazwi examines patterns of agricultural finance in Zimbabwe since the radical Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme (FTLRP) was implemented in 2000—and, especially, the varying impact that the FTLRP reforms have had not only on land use, but also on the well-being of farmers. Focusing on contract farming in the tobacco and sugarcane sectors, Mazwi offers penetrating insights into    More >

The Political Economy of Contract Farming in Zimbabwe

The Political Economy of Regionalism in Southern Africa

Margaret C. Lee

In the face of increasing economic globalization, the countries of southern Africa have made commitments to enhanced regional development and the integration of their economies. Margaret Lee examines the challenges to regionalism in southern Africa, providing a critical assessment of the prospects for successful implementation.   Lee's detailed study of the processes driving (or inhibiting)    More >

The Political Economy of Regionalism in Southern Africa

The Politics of AIDS in Africa

Amy S. Patterson

Why do some African states commit more effectively than others to the fight against AIDS? How do power inequalities and decisionmaking institutions shape Africa's ability to combat the disease? Within the context of debates about the nature of the African state, its relations with civil society, and its reliance on external donors, Amy Patterson presents a systematic study of African state    More >

The Politics of AIDS in Africa

The Puzzle of Ethiopian Politics

Terrence Lyons

How did a group with its origins in a small Marxist-Leninist insurgency in northern Ethiopia transform itself into a party (the EPRDF) with eight million members and a hierarchy that links even the smallest Ethiopian village to the center? How do the legacies of protracted civil war and rebel victory over the brutal Derg regime continue to shape contemporary Ethiopian politics? And can the EPRDF,    More >

The Puzzle of Ethiopian Politics

The Roots of Somali Political Culture

M.J. Fox

The fragmentation of the former Somali Democratic Republic into three distinctive entities, together with the events that have ensued since then, make for a complex political puzzle that raises a plethora of questions.  M.J. Fox explores some of the most fundamental of those questions: Have the "three Somalias" of today always been as disparate as they are now? How deeply rooted are    More >

The Roots of Somali Political Culture

The South African Informal Sector: Creating Jobs, Reducing Poverty

Frederick Fourie, editor

The outcome of a four-year research project, this collaborative work draws on both quantitative and qualitative evidence to demonstrate the contributions of South Africa's informal sector. The informal sector provides a livelihood for some 2.5 million South Africans—one in every six South Africans who work. Informal enterprises with employees provide about 850,000 paid jobs, almost    More >

The South African Informal Sector: Creating Jobs, Reducing Poverty

The Suns of Independence

Ahmadou Kourouma

A masterpiece of modern African literature, The Suns of Independence brilliantly captures the struggles, desires, and dreams of people in a west African country as they live through the tumultuous days of postcolonial independence.    More >

The Suns of Independence

The Texture of Dissent: Defiant Public Intellectuals in South Africa

Narnia Bohler-Muller, Vasu Reddy, Gregory Houston, Maxi Schoeman, and Heather Thuynsma, editors

The Texture of Dissent presents concise political biographies of a myriad of prominent South African public intellectuals who were shaped by the contentious issues of their day. Showcasing the ways in which these individuals were involved in the "political work of social change," the contributors also reflect on the legacy of their defiant thought and action in today's complex    More >

The Texture of Dissent: Defiant Public Intellectuals in South Africa

The Time of Youth: Work, Social Change, and Politics in Africa

Alcinda M. Honwana

Most young Africans are living in a state of "waithood," argues Alcinda Honwana, finding themselves suspended in limbo between childhood and adulthood. Failed neoliberal economic policies, bad governance, and political instability have caused stable jobs to disappear; and without jobs that pay living wages, these young people cannot become fully participating members of society. But that    More >

The Time of Youth: Work, Social Change, and Politics in Africa

The US Military in Africa: Enhancing Security and Development?

Jessica Piombo, editor

Recent US security policy toward Africa has adopted a multidimensional approach—including the use of military assets to promote economic development and good governance—that has raised questions and generated considerable debate. Can actors like the US military develop appropriate methods to address both US and African interests? What blend of civilian and military programs are most    More >

The US Military in Africa: Enhancing Security and Development?

Thomas Sankara

Jean-Claude Kongo and Leo Zeilig

His image is unmistakable: with beret and broad grin, Thomas Sankara's picture is pasted on run-down taxis and seen on the walls of local bars throughout Africa. Known widely as the African Che Guevara, Sakara was Burkina Faso's president from August 1983 until October 1987, when he was killed in a military coup led by Blaise Compaoré. His revolutionary ideas for African    More >

Thomas Sankara

Township Economy: People, Spaces, and Practices

Andrew Charman, Leif Petersen, and Thireshen Govender

Township Economy provides unique insight into the nature of informal businesses and entrepreneurship in the townships of postapartheid South Africa and Namibia. The authors draw on evidence collected across nearly a decade, beginning in 2010, to focus on microenterprises, the business strategies of township entrepreneurs, and the impact of autonomous informal economic activities on urban life.    More >

Township Economy: People, Spaces, and Practices

Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict “Medicine”

I. William Zartman, editor

Medical science has taken a new look at indigenous African healing practices, asking whether unique knowledge exists in traditional societies or whether Western and traditional societies developed the same knowledge with different names. In a similar vein, this study considers traditional African conflict-management practices. The authors identify the contributions of traditional mechanisms for    More >

Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict “Medicine”

Transformative Leadership in African Contexts: Strategies for Social Change

Sharlene Swartz, Tarryn De Kock, and Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, editors

Desmond Tutu once said, "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river and find out why they are falling in." The authors of this innovative collection take these words to heart. Embracing a transformative leadership approach, they show how contemporary African leaders are meeting a broad range of challenges as they seek positive change in societies    More >

Transformative Leadership in African Contexts: Strategies for Social Change

Transforming Capitalism and Patriarchy: Gender and Development in Africa

April A. Gordon

Using insights from feminist theory and political economy, Gordon examines the implications for women of current economic and political reform efforts in Africa. Much of the work on women in Africa argues that patriarchy and capitalism have collaborated in the exploitation and control of women to support dependent capitalist development; therefore, both are antithetical to the interests of women.    More >

Transforming Capitalism and Patriarchy: Gender and Development in Africa

Transforming Rwanda: Challenges on the Road to Reconstruction

Jean-Paul Kimonyo

Since the end of its genocidal civil war in 1994, Rwanda has embarked on an ambitious, and often controversial, process of reconstruction. Jean-Paul Kimonyo comprehensively analyzes that process in the political, military, socioeconomic, and cultural arenas. Kimonyo combines the objectivity of a scholar with the front-row perspective of a participant to provide an unparalleled analysis of the    More >

Transforming Rwanda: Challenges on the Road to Reconstruction

Transition Without End: Nigerian Politics and Civil Society Under Babangida

Larry Diamond, Anthony Kirk-Greene, and Oyeleye Oyediran, editors

Since 1986, Nigeria has been struggling without success to return to a civilian, democratic form of government: as political parties, presidential candidates, economic reform programs, and top military officers have come and gone, the country has become mired in an authoritarian limbo, a transition without end. This wide-ranging study examines the rise and fall of democratic transition and    More >

Transition Without End: Nigerian Politics and Civil Society Under Babangida

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Miracle or Model?

Lyn S. Graybill

Was South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) a "miracle" that depended on the unique leadership of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu? Or does it provide a working model for other traumatized nations? Addressing these questions, Lyn Graybill explores the political origins, theological underpinnings, and major achievements of the world's most ambitious truth    More >

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Miracle or Model?

UN Peacekeeping in Africa: From the Suez Crisis to the Sudan Conflicts

Adekeye Adebajo

Nearly half of all UN peacekeeping missions in the post–Cold War era have been in Africa, and the continent currently hosts the greatest number (and also the largest) of such missions in the world. Uniquely assessing five decades of UN peacekeeping in Africa, Adekeye Adebajo focuses on a series of questions: What accounts for the resurgence of UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa after the Cold    More >

UN Peacekeeping in Africa: From the Suez Crisis to the Sudan Conflicts

Understanding Contemporary Africa, 6th edition

Peter J. Schraeder, editor

The sixth edition of Understanding Contemporary Africa, and the first under the editorship of Peter Schraeder, combines the strengths of the previous editions with coverage of new topics suggested over the years by the many instructors who regularly assign the text in their classes. Entirely new chapters on the politics of public health, the changing roles of women, LGBTIQ rights, environmental    More >

Understanding Contemporary Africa, 6th edition

Unmasking Boko Haram: Exploring Global Jihad in Nigeria

Jacob Zenn

The kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014 drew the world's attention to the previously little-known extremist group Boko Haram. Numerous questions followed, among them: Where did Boko Haram come from? What explains the rise of this militant Islamic group and its increasingly violent actions? What is its relationship to the Islamic State? Jacob Zenn    More >

Unmasking Boko Haram: Exploring Global Jihad in Nigeria

US Policy Toward Africa: Eight Decades of Realpolitik

Herman J. Cohen

Herman Cohen draws on both the documentary record and his years of on-the-ground experience to provide a uniquely comprehensive survey and interpretation of nearly eight decades of US policy toward Africa. Tracing how this policy has evolved across successive administrations since 1942 (beginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third term in office), Cohen illuminates the debates    More >

US Policy Toward Africa: Eight Decades of Realpolitik

Violent Ecotropes: Petroculture in the Niger Delta

Philip Aghoghovwia

Environmental devastation. Local militancy. Smuggling. Violence. All of these describe the Niger Delta, the crude-oil extraction center of Nigeria. Philip Aghoghovwia offers a unique interpretation of the region's petroviolence, examining the cultural aspects of the extraction industry in the societies within which it operates. As he considers the charged and often clashing contexts of the    More >

Violent Ecotropes: Petroculture in the Niger Delta

Voices From Mutira: Change in the Lives of Rural Gikuyu Women, 1910-1995, 2nd Edition

Jean Davison

To update this rich, informative collection of life histories, Davison returned to Mutira in 1989, 1992, and 1994, documenting the changes occurring since her 1984 study. Six of the seven life histories in the first edition have been expanded to reflect the events of the last decade. Two new introductory chapters frame the life histories within the context both of the significant macrolevel    More >

Voices From Mutira: Change in the Lives of Rural Gikuyu Women, 1910-1995, 2nd Edition

Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa

Michael Bratton, editor

How do individual Africans view competitive elections? How do they behave at election time? What are the implications of new forms of popular participation for citizenship and democracy? Drawing on a decade of research from the cross-national Afrobarometer project, the authors of this seminal collection explore the emerging role of mass politics in Africa's fledgling democracies.    More >

Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa

Waiting for Rain: Agriculture and Ecological Imbalance in Cape Verde

Mark Langworthy and Timothy J. Finan

This ethnographic study of Cape Verde tackles critical development issues: the struggle for self–sufficient food security, the tension between agricultural production and natural resource sustainability, and the appropriate role of government policy in food production and natural resource management. Cape Verde has moved into an ecological imbalance between the sustainable production    More >

Waiting for Rain: Agriculture and Ecological Imbalance in Cape Verde

Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom

Grace A Musila, editor

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011), founder of the Green Belt Movement and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was a tireless social, environmental, and political activist, as well as an accomplished scholar. A champion of democracy and human rights, she worked tenaciously to dismantle the forces that limit people's access to a dignified life across the Global South and    More >

Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom

Warlord Politics and African States

William Reno

The dramatic reconfigurations of political authority taking place in Africa—what many term "warlordism" or "state failure"—call for an exploration of the origins of these changes, the likelihood of their durability, and their implications for the continent's regional system of states. Reno argues that the end of the Cold War as a particular configuration of the    More >

Warlord Politics and African States

Weaponizing Water: Water Stress and Islamic Extremist Violence in Africa and the Middle East

Marcus D. King

Drought, lack of access, poor quality … water supplies are in jeopardy across Africa and the Middle East. These same areas are rife with conflicts involving Islamic extremist groups. Marcus King explores linkages between water stress and violent conflict by looking closely at how ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia have weaponized water in the pursuit of    More >

Weaponizing Water: Water Stress and Islamic Extremist Violence in Africa and the Middle East

West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region

Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid, editors

Among the world's most unstable regions, West Africa in the last decade has experienced a web of conflicts with profound and wide-ranging effects. West Africa's Security Challenges is the first comprehensive assessment of the resulting mix of setbacks and progress. The authors provide a context for understanding the region's security dilemmas, highlighting the link between failures of    More >

West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region

Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate?, 2nd edition

Erik Jensen

Responding to the changes that have swept across North Africa since the first edition of this book was published, Erik Jensen sheds new light on the enduring dispute over Western Sahara. Jensen reviews the history of the dispute, beginning with its colonial roots, and explains how and why attempts made by the OAU and, more persistently, the UN failed to achieve a formula for resolution    More >

Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate?, 2nd edition

Women and Development in Africa: How Gender Works, 2nd Edition

Michael Kevane

This new edition of Women and Development in Africa incorporates the results of more than a decade of new empirical and theoretical research. Michael Kevane provides a broad overview of the sources of underdevelopment in Africa and the role of gender in economic transactions, as well as a cogent analysis of the gendered realities of such issues as land rights, the control of labor, the marriage    More >

Women and Development in Africa: How Gender Works, 2nd Edition

Women and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Power, Opportunities, and Constraints

Marianne Bloch, Josephine A. Beoku-Betts, and B. Robert Tabachnick, editors

This volume focuses on gender and education in sub-Saharan Africa, considering in particular the impact formal and nonformal education have had on African women. A variety of country studies illustrate current theoretical debates in three key areas: postcolonial influences on the forms of education that are privileged; human-capital, socialist-feminist, and post-modern perspectives on the    More >

Women and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Power, Opportunities, and Constraints

Women Farmers and Commercial Ventures: Increasing Food Security in Developing Countries

Anita Spring, editor

Women around the world are entering commercial agriculture—and often succeeding—despite development policies designed to exclude them. In this comparative volume, case studies reveal that farm women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are rapidly becoming more than “subsistence producers. The authors explore the societal and domestic changes brought about as women move from    More >

Women Farmers and Commercial Ventures: Increasing Food Security in Developing Countries

Women in African Parliaments

Gretchen Bauer and Hannah E. Britton, editors

Working together across religious, ethnic, and class divisions, African women are helping to formulate legislation and foster democracies more inclusive of womens' interests. Women in African Parliaments explores this phenomenon, examining the impact and experiences of African women as they seek increased representation in national legislatures. The authors' carefully constructed case    More >

Women in African Parliaments

Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity

Herbert L. Bodman and Nayereh Tohidi, editors

Study after study of women in the Muslim world has focused primarily on Middle Eastern societies, usually emphasizing the sexual ideology of a reified Islam. This book rounds out that view, exploring the status, roles, and contributions of Muslim women not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa and Asia, including post-Soviet Central Asia. The authors, many of them from the countries they    More >

Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity

Women, Work, and Economic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Valentine M. Moghadam

Globalization and changing political economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are affecting women's labor-force participation, educational attainment,  and access to economic resources. But are these changes in fact resulting in economic gains for women? And will this produce an intensification or a subversion of the patriarchal gender contract that has thus far characterized    More >

Women, Work, and Economic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Working Class Homosexuality in South African History: Voices from the Archives

Iain Edwards and Marc Epprecht

The very existence of homosexual working-class men in South Africa has long-been suppressed—or worse. Iain Edwards and Marc Epprecht have recovered representative stories of these men who were previously deemed "outside of history." Based on a previously unpublished primary source from the early twentieth century, as well as unique interviews with men remembering their lives in    More >

Working Class Homosexuality in South African History: Voices from the Archives

World Champions: The Story of South African Rugby, 2nd edition

Jonty Winch

Pitched against the backdrop of South Africa’s thrilling 2023 World Cup win, this second edition of World Champions includes two new chapters, updates throughout the book, and an expanded index. Jonty Winch traces the complicated history of South African rugby from its establishment in the Cape in 1879 through the 2023 championship. As he explores key events and questions entrenched    More >

World Champions: The Story of South African Rugby, 2nd edition

Yoruba Hometowns: Community, Identity, and Development in Nigeria

Lillian Trager

The pattern of migrants maintaining strong ties with their home communities is particularly common in sub-Saharan Africa, where it has important social, cultural, political, and economic implications. Lillian Trager explores the significance of hometown connections for civil society and local development in Nigeria. Rich ethnographic description and case studies illustrate the links that the Ijesa    More >

Yoruba Hometowns: Community, Identity, and Development in Nigeria

Young Families: Gender, Sexuality, and Care

Nolwazi Mkhwanazi and Deevia Bhana, eds.

The authors of Young Families present an unparalleled view of the realities of teenage pregnancy in South Africa. Drawing on empirical data, multilevel approaches, and interdisciplinary perspectives on the dynamics that underpin young peoples' experiences of having and caring for a child, they explore the contexts in which young families are constituted and shaped, as well as the kinds of    More >

Young Families: Gender, Sexuality, and Care

Zheng He’s Voyages to Africa in the 15th Century: The Maritime Silk and Porcelain Road

Li Xinfeng, translated by Shelly Bryant

Though it has been some six centuries since explorer Zheng He visited Africa, scholar Li Xinfeng finds connections between Zheng's voyages and China-Africa relations today. Li discusses Zheng's travels at length, ranging from details of his ships and crews to the nature of the relationships that he forged. As he considers the explorer's legacy in the current global environment, he    More >

Zheng He’s Voyages to Africa in the 15th Century: The Maritime Silk and Porcelain Road

Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land

Joseph Hanlon, Jeannette Manjengwa, and Teresa Smart

Countering the dominant media narratives of economic stagnation, Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land offers a more positive and nuanced assessment of the results of the contentious land reforms that were introduced in Zimbabwe in 2000. The authors do not minimize the depredations of the Mugabe regime. Rather, they show how "ordinary" Zimbabweans have taken charge of their destinies in    More >

Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land