Looking for some good reading recommendations for the summer?
Dr. Phil Morgan of GSIPS suggests the following books on current issues in Africa:
Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier by Harry G. Broadman. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2007.
Patterns and performance of African-Asian trade and investment flows.
(available in PDF on the World Bank E-Library)
China in Africa: Partner, Competitor or Hegemon? by Chris Alden. London/New York: Zed Books, 2007.
China’s new foreign policy toward Africa: development partner, economic competitor, or new colonizer?
(On order for our Circulating Collection)
South Africa in Africa: the Post-Apartheid Era edited by A. Adebajo, A. Adedeji and C. Landsberg. Scottsville, South Africa: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2007.
Analyses of regional challenges for South Africa’s foreign policy, both conventional (leadership, military, economic) and unconventional (land reform, HIV/AIDS).
(In our Circulation Collection: DT38.9.S6S685 2007)
Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order by James Ferguson. Duke University Press, 2006.
A socio-cultural perspective on the consequences of a globalized economy on local African ways of thinking.
(On order for our Circulating Collection)
Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa by Jane I. Guyer. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
An examination of diverse popular economic systems in Africa, with emphasis on currencies, quotidian transactions and financial institutions. A special issue of the African Studies Review, the journal of the African Studies Association, was devoted to the above work by Guyer indicating its provocative impact. (Vol. 50, No. 2, September 2007)
(On order for our Circulating Collection)
African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors by Todd J. Moss. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007.
A sharp chronological synthesis of development approaches and strategies of both donors and local power elites over forty years, concluding with an african inspired reform agenda.
(In our Circulating Collection: HC800.M6775 2007)
Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice by Catherine Boone. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
A detailed empirical study of three countries and the patterns of state-building, within each, as determined by geography, the nature of the rural economy, and the strategic interaction between rural and state elites.
(In our Circulating Collection: JQ1879.A15B66 2003))
Somalia: Diaspora and State Reconstitution in the Horn of Africa edited by Osman Farah, M. Muchie and J. Gundel. London: Adonis and Abbey Publishers, 2007.
The editors bring together multiple perspectives on efforts at reconstituting the failed Somali state and the role played by the Somali Diaspora and civil society groups.
(On order for our Circulating Collection)
The French Betrayal of Rwanda by Daniela Kroslak. Indiana University Press, 2008.
How to evaluate the responsibility of the French government in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda? This balanced study examines “French awareness of the impending disaster, French involvement before the genocide, and French diplomatic efforts and military capacity to change the tide.”
(In our Circulating Collection: DT450.435.K769 2008)
