Eastern African Studies
About Eastern African Studies
A ground-breaking series that has redefined a region, the Eastern African Studies Series takes in a broad sweep of the continent from Ethiopia and the Red Sea to Mozambique. The EAS is both multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary. It includes studies of distinction that contribute to academic debates, general regional and country surveys, and multi-authored collections on key topics. An outlet for first-time authors as well as a showcase for established scholars, EAS has presented major new works on Mau Mau, the nature of the colonial state, social history and social life, religion and politics, conflict and reconstruction, environmental history, and poverty and development. All books in the series are available in paperback editions.
Featured Titles
Decolonization & Independence in Kenya, 1940–1993
Edited by B. A. Ogot and W. R. Ochieng
This is a sharply observed assessment of the history of the last half century by a distinguished group of historians of Kenya. At the same time the book is a courageous reflection in the dilemmas of African nationhood.…
Eroding the Commons – On Sale
The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya, 1890s-1963
Colonial Baringo was largely unnoticed until drought and localized famine in the mid-1920s led to claims that its crisis was brought on by overcrowding and livestock mismanagement. In response to the alarm over erosion, the state embarked on a program for rehabilitation, conservation, and development.…
Mau Mau and Nationhood – On Sale
Arms, Authority, and Narration
Edited by E. S. Atieno Odhiambo and John Lonsdale
Fifty years after the declaration of the state of emergency, Mau Mau still excites argument and controversy, not least in Kenya itself. Mau Mau and Nationhood is a collection of essays providing the most recent thinking on the uprising and its aftermath.…
Religion & Politics in East Africa
The Period since Independence
Edited by Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle
Religious activities have been of continuing importance in the rise of protest against postcolonial governments in Eastern Africa. Issues considered include attempts by government to “manage” religious affairs in both Muslim and Christian areas; religious denominations as surrogate oppositions to one-party-state regimes and as advocates of human rights; Islamic fundamentalism before and after the end of the Cold War; and Christian churches as NGOs in the age of structural adjustment.…
Pastimes and Politics – On Sale
Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945
By Laura Fair
The first decades of the twentieth century were years of dramatic change in Zanzibar, a time when the social, economic, and political lives of island residents were in incredible flux, framed by the abolition of slavery, the introduction of colonialism, and a tide of urban migration.…
Penetration & Protest in Tanzania
Impact of World Economy on the Pare, 1860–1960
The originality of this study of rural transformation stems from the way in which Professor Kimambo has used the oral tradition to reveal the history of the impact of the world economy in northeastern Tanzania.…
Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia – On Sale
The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century
By Bahru Zewde
In this exciting new study, Bahru Zewde, one of the foremost historians of modern Ethiopia, has constructed a collective biography of a remarkable group of men and women in a formative period of their country's history.…
Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda
Economy, Society, and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century
Blessed with fertile and well-watered soil, East Africa's kingdom of Buganda supported a relatively dense population and became a major regional power by the mid-nineteenth century. This complex and fascinating state has also long been in need of a thorough study that cuts through the image of autocracy and military might.…
The Poor Are Not Us – On Sale
Poverty and Pastoralism in Eastern Africa
Edited by David M. Anderson and Vigdis Broch-Due
Eastern African pastoralists often present themselves as being egalitarian, equating cattle ownership with wealth. By this definition “the poor are not us”, poverty is confined to non-pastoralist, socially excluded persons and groups.…
Potent Brews – On Sale
A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa, 1850–1999
In this first general history of alcohol and drinking in East Africa, Justin Willis's central theme is power—from customary beliefs in alcohol as a symbol of authority and a means of enhancement and privilege, to the use of power in advertising, and discourse on the consumption of modern bottled beers and spirits.…
Property Rights & Political Development In Ethiopia & Eritrea – On Sale
This book looks at the microfoundations of poverty in the developing world and in particular those present in property rights. The local institutions that govern land access are fundamental in affecting the distribution of wealth in a society.…
Religion & Politics in East Africa
The Period since Independence
Edited by Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle
Religious activities have been of continuing importance in the rise of protest against postcolonial governments in Eastern Africa. Issues considered include attempts by government to “manage” religious affairs in both Muslim and Christian areas; religious denominations as surrogate oppositions to one-party-state regimes and as advocates of human rights; Islamic fundamentalism before and after the end of the Cold War; and Christian churches as NGOs in the age of structural adjustment.…
Remapping Ethiopia – On Sale
Socialism & After
Edited by Wendy James, Eisei Kurimoto, Donald L. Donham and Alessandro Triulzi
Governance everywhere is concerned with spatial relationships. Modern states “map” local communities, making them legible for the purposes of control. Ethiopia has gone through several stages of “mapping” in its imperial, revolutionary, and postrevolutionary phases.…
Revealing Prophets
Prophecy In Eastern African History
Edited by David M. Anderson and Douglas H. Johnson
This book examines the richly textured histories of prophets and prophecies within East Africa. It gives an analytical account of the significantly different forms prophecy has taken over the past century across the country.…
Revolution and Religion in Ethiopia – On Sale
The Growth and Persecution of the Mekane Yesus Church, 1974–85
Studies of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution have hitherto almost completely ignored religion, in spite of the commitment of a great majority of Ethiopian people to one or another religious tradition.…
Second Economy in Tanzania
By T. L. Maliyamkono and Mboya S. D. Bagachwa
Every country has its second, underground, unofficial, irregular or parallel economy. By their nature they are hidden and defy accurate and formal measurement. They provoke conceptual and definitional arguments among analysts.…
Siaya
The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape
By David William Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo
The authors of this highly original book set out to remove the persistent boundary between the authors and readers of ethnography on one hand and the subjects of ethnography on the other – those who observe and those who are observed.…
Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa
Edited by Henri Médard and Shane Doyle
Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa is a collection of ten studies by the most prominent historians of the region. Slavery was more important in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa than often has been assumed, and Africans from the interior played a more complex role than was previously recognized.…
Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar
Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873
The rise of Zanzibar was based on two major economic transformations. Firstly slaves became used for producing cloves and grains for export. Previously the slaves themselves were exported. Secondly, there was an increased international demand for luxuries such as ivory.…
Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia
Essays in History and Social Anthropology
Edited by Donald L. Donham and Wendy James
This pioneering book, first published to wide acclaim in 1986, traces the way the Ethiopian center and the peripheral regions of the country affected each other. It looks specifically at the expansion of the highland Ethiopian state into the western and southern lowlands from the 1890s up to 1974.…
Swahili Origins
Swahili Culture and The Shungwaya Phenomenon
Kiswahili has become the lingua franca of eastern Africa. Yet there can be few historic peoples whose identity is as elusive as that of the Swahili. Some have described themselves as Arabs, as Persians or even, in one place, as Portuguese.…
Uganda Now – On Sale
Between Decay & Development
Edited by Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle
Can the revolutionary government of Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement put Uganda back on the road from decay to development?These informed assessments put the present situation in context.…
Unhappy Valley
Clan, Class & State In Colonial Kenya
By Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale
This long-awaited book is a considerable revision in the understanding of the history of colonial Kenya and, more widely, colonialism in Africa. There is a substantial amount of new work and this is interlocked with shared areas of concern that the authors have been exploring since 1976.…
