Reviewed in Choice

By E. S. Schmidt
Loyola College in Maryland
September, 2003

This highly nuanced study examines the rich borderland communities of the Ghana Togo frontier from WW I to the present, focusing on the Ghanaian side. Nugent (Univ. of Edinburgh) argues that although Europeans drew the boundaries, they owe more to precolonial economic and ethnic patterns than previously recognized. Moreover, the boundaries created new interests and opportunities. The expansion of cocoa production and trade and the commodification of land brought strangers to the frontier zone. The increasingly mixed ethnic identity of the region bound people together as Ghanians, rather than as members of particular ethnic groups. None of these groups were interested in dissolving the international boundary. Thus, the border helped to strengthen national over ethnic identity. Although Europeans devised the border, the indigenous population embraced it and made it their own. For smugglers, the border represented less an artificial barrier imposed by outsiders than an opportunity for profit. Based on extensive archival research and oral interviews, this book will interest social and political historians, anthropologists, and political scientists.

Summing Up: Recommended. College and university libraries; scholars and graduate students.

Choice
Vol. 41, No. 01
September 2003