New Books in African Studies

Mar 05 2025 757 ep. 60 mins 1.6k

New Books in African Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Africa about their New Books

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Arwen P. Mohun, "American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa" (Chicago UP, 2023)

Mar 05 2025 45 mins

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points a

Alexander Smalls and Nina Oduro, "The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home Cooking Recipes from the Leading Chefs of Africa" (Phaidon Press, 2024)

Feb 28 2025 24 mins

The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home Cooking Recipes from the Leading Chefs of Africa (Phaidon Press, 2024) is an elegant collection of 120 home cooking recipes from Africa’s most exciting culinary voices today. Extensively researched and thoughtfully curated by James Beard Award winning chef, author, and restaurateur Alexander Smalls in collaboration with Dine Diaspor

Philip A. Martin, "Strong Commanders, Weak States: How Rebel Governance Shapes Military Integration after Civil War" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Feb 26 2025 66 mins

In Strong Commanders, Weak States: How Rebel Governance Shapes Military Integration after Civil War (Cornell University Press, 2025), Dr. Philip A. Martin investigates a fundamental political challenge faced by post-conflict states: how to create obedient national militaries from the remnants of insurgent forces. When civil wars end, non-state armed groups often integrate into post

Kara Cooney, "Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches" (American U in Cairo Press, 2024)

Feb 23 2025 55 mins

Today I talked to Kara Cooney about Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches (American U in Cairo Press, 2024). The book is a meticulous study of the social, economic, and religious significance of coffin reuse and development during the Ramesside and early Third Intermediate periods, illustrated with over 900 images. Funerary datasets are the

Rhiannon Stephens, "Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History" (Duke UP, 2022)

Feb 22 2025 49 mins

In Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History (Duke UP, 2022), Rhiannon Stephens offers a conceptual history of how people living in eastern Uganda have sustained and changed their ways of thinking about wealth and poverty over the past two thousand years. This history serves as a powerful reminder that colonialism and capitalism did not introduce economic thought to t

Lindsay O'Neill, "The Two Princes of Mpfumo: An Early Eighteenth-Century Journey Into and Out of Slavery" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

Feb 21 2025 49 mins

In 1716 two princes from Mpfumo—what is today Maputo, the capital of Mozambique—boarded a ship licensed by the East India Company bound for England. Instead, their perfidious captain sold them into slavery in Jamaica. After two years of pleading their case, the princes—known in the historical record as Prince James and Prince John—convinced a lawyer to purchase them, free t

Samar Al-Bulushi, "War-Making as Worldmaking: Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror" (Stanford UP, 2024)

Feb 17 2025 68 mins

Since Kenya's invasion of Somalia in 2011, the Kenyan state has been engaged in direct combat with the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab, conducting airstrikes in southern Somalia and deploying heavy-handed police tactics at home. As the hunt for suspects has expanded within Kenya, Kenyan Muslims have been subject to disappearances and extrajudicial killings at the hands of U.S.-tra

Raphael Chijioke Njoku, "Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans: Narrating Decolonization, Postwar Commonwealth, and Africa’s Development, 1947-2022" (Leuven UP, 2024)

Feb 16 2025 69 mins

The road to Queen Elizabeth II’s implementation of African reforms was rough, especially in the first two decades following her ascension to the throne. In Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans (Leuven UP, 2024), Raphael Chijioke Njoku examines Queen Elizabeth II’s role in the African decolonization trajectories and the postcolonial state’s quest for genuine political and econo

Frank Gerits, "The Ideological Scramble for Africa: How the Pursuit of Anticolonial Modernity Shaped a Postcolonial Order, 1945-1966" (Cornell UP, 2023)

Feb 12 2025 59 mins

In The Ideological Scramble for Africa, Frank Gerits examines how African leaders in the 1950s and 1960s crafted an anticolonial modernization project. Rather than choose Cold War sides between East and West, anticolonial nationalists worked to reverse the psychological and cultural destruction of colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah's African Union was envisioned as a federation of liberati

A. G. Hopkins, "Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Jan 30 2025 54 mins

In Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931 (Princeton UP, 2024), A. G. Hopkins provides the first substantial assessment of the fortunes of African entrepreneurs under colonial rule. Examining the lives and careers of 100 merchants in Lagos, Nigeria, between 1850 and 1931, Hopkins challenges conventional views of the contribution made by indigenous entre