African Studies
About African Studies
Ohio University Press’s African Studies publishing program includes regional surveys, works of distinguished scholarship that contribute to academic debates, and multiauthor collections on key topics. Groundbreaking series such as Eastern African Studies, Western African Studies, Research in International Studies (RIS) Africa, RIS Global and Comparative Studies, and the Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History have redefined the study of Africa. The New African Histories series promotes continued research on the lived experience of Africans while pushing the boundaries of social history in exciting new directions. A forthcoming series, Africa in World History, will produce accessibly written books by African specialists who speak to current images of Africa in the popular culture, drawing attention to the parallels in human experience in Africa and other parts of the world.
Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, our list promotes the work of both first-time authors and established scholars. Topics include the nature of the colonial state, social history and social life, religion and politics, conflict and reconstruction, environmental history, poverty, public health, and development.
Many books on our African Studies list are available in paperback editions.
Featured Title(s)
The African AIDS Epidemic
A History
By John Iliffe
This history of the African AIDS epidemic is a much-needed, accessibly written historical account of the most serious epidemiological catastrophe of modern times. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History answers President Thabo Mbeki’s provocative question as to why Africa has suffered this terrible epidemic.…
Butterflies & Barbarians
Swiss Missionaries and Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa
Swiss missionaries played a primary and little-known role in explaining Africa to the literate world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book emphasizes how these European intellectuals, brought to the deep rural areas of southern Africa by their vocation, formulated and ordered knowledge about the continent.…
Fighting the Greater Jihad
Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853–1913
In Senegal, the Muridiyya, a large Islamic Sufi order, is the single most influential religious organization, including among its numbers the nation’s president. Yet little is known of this sect in the West.…
Crisis & Decline in Bunyoro
Population & Environment in Western Uganda 1860–1955
By Shane Doyle
The Kingdom of Bunyoro's story demonstrates convincingly that environmental change there was not a uniform, statewide process. In one of the first studies of the political ecology of a major African kingdom, Crisis & Decline in Bunyoro addresses state capacity, ideology, and government legitimacy as crucial issues.…
Custodians of the Land – On Sale
Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania
Edited by Gregory H. Maddox, James L. Giblin and Isaria N. Kimambo
Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history.…
Dance Civet Cat
Tonga Children and Labour in the Zambezi Valley
In this, the first comprehensive study of the Tonga people in Zimbabwe, Pamela Reynolds focuses on children’s work in a subsistence agricultural system, assessing how much work they do, the value of their work to their families and how it both limits their opportunities and fosters their personal growth and knowledge.…
Decolonization & Independence in Kenya, 1940–1993
Edited by W. R. Ochieng and B. A. Ogot
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.…
The Decolonization of Africa
This bold, popularizing synthesis presents a readily accessible introduction to one of the major themes of twentieth-century world history. Between 1922, when self-government was restored to Egypt, and 1994, when nonracial democracy was achieved in South Africa, 54 new nations were established in Africa.…
Democracy in Botswana
The Proceedings of a Symposium held in Gaborone, 1–5 August 1988
Edited by John D. Holm and Patrick P. Molutsi
This book examines the character of Botswana’s democracy and provides an intense debate on the quality of popular control achieved. Topics covered include Botswana’s historical experience with democracy, public opinion, political rights, the impact of classes, groups and mass media on government policy, and grass–roots politics.…
Democratic Reform in Africa
Its Impact on Governance and Poverty Alleviation
Edited by Muna Ndulo
Democratic reform in Africa has been slow, difficult, and at times painful. Nevertheless, sufficient time has passed for those interested in political and economic development to assess what progress, if any, Africa has made in addressing the need for the consolidation of democratic reform and the resolution of considerable developmental challenges.…
Developing Uganda – On Sale
Edited by Michael Twaddle and Holger Bernt Hansen
Uganda's recovery since Museveni came to power in 1986 has been one of the heartening achievements in a continent where the media have given intense coverage to disasters. This book assesses the question of whether the reality lives up to the image that has so impressed the supporters of its recovery.…
Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860-1970
By Erik Gilbert
Conventional history assumes that the rise of the steamship trade killed off the Indian Ocean dhow trade in the twentieth century. Erik Gilbert argues that the dhow economy played a major role in shaping the economic and social life of colonial Zanzibar.…
East African Expressions of Christianity
Edited by Thomas Spear and Isaria N. Kimambo
Christianity has been spread in Africa by Africans. It is the story of peoples seizing control of their own spiritual destinies—rather than the commonplace notion that the continent's Christian churches represent colonial and capitalist powers that helped subdue Africans to European domination.…
Echoes of the Sunbird – On Sale
An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry
Edited by Donald Burness
This volume presents a broad overview of the work of seven of Africa’s leading poets. Five of them have received international recognition: Niyi Osundare and Chinua Achebe, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; Osundare and Antonio Jacinto, the Noma Prize; and Jose Craveirinha, the Camoes Prize.…
Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History
The Case of Tanganyika, 1850–1950
This pioneering book was one of the first to place the history of East Africa within the context of the environment. It has been used continuously for student teaching. It is now reissued with an introduction placing it within the debate that has developed on the subject; there is also an updated bibliography.…
Economic & Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945—1953 – On Sale
By David Throup
This story of Kenya in the decade before the outbreak of the Mau Mau emergency presents an integrated view of imperial government as well as examining the social and economic causes of the Kikuyu revolt.…
Education In the Development of Tanzania, 1919-1990
By Lene Buchert
Deals with the realities of education in a debt-ridden African country trying to cope with the pressures of externally imposed educational budgets.
El Dorado in West Africa – On Sale
The Gold Mining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism
The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed some of the greatest gold mining migrations in history when dreams of bonanza lured thousands of prospectors and diggers to the far corners of the earth—including the Gold Coast of West Africa.…
Emancipation Without Abolition in German East Africa, c. 1884–1914
This study examines the complex history of slavery in East Africa, focusing on the area that came under German colonial rule. In contrast to the policy pursued at the time by other colonial powers in Africa, the German authorities did not legally abolish slavery in their colonial territories.…
Empire State-Building – On Sale
War and Welfare in Kenya, 1925–1952
By Joanna Lewis
This history of administrative thought and practice in colonial Kenya looks at the ways in which white people tried to engineer social change. It asks four questions: Why was Kenya's welfare operation so idiosyncratic and spartan compared with that of other British colonies? Why did a transformation from social welfare to community development produce further neglect of the very poor? Why was there no equivalent to the French tradition of community medicine? If there was a transformatory element of colonial rule that sought to address poverty, where and why did it fall down? The answers offer revealing insight into the dynamics of rule in the late colonial period in Kenya.…
Environmental Justice in South Africa
Edited by David A. McDonald
Environmental Justice in South Africa provides a systematic overview of the first ten years of postapartheid environmental politics. Written by leading activists and academics in the field, this edited collection offers the first critical perspective of environmental justice theory and practice in South Africa.…
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.…
Es’kia Mphahlele – On Sale
Themes of Alienation and African Humanism
By Ruth Obee
"If you really want to understand South Africa, read black African writers. Read Es'kia Mphahlele," is the advice proffered to diplomats and scholars by professor and publisher Donald Herdeck.…
