It’s the end of May, and as is our tradition here at TMC, it’s time to announce this year’s selections for the sixth annual African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular. Just as in past years, we will feature book reviews, guest posts and author Q&As on some of the most interesting books published on African politics in 2018 and 2019.
In our series, we define “politics” as broadly as possible — from scholarship in political science and history to journalistic accounts and technology studies. We spotlight great reads on a wide variety of places, phenomena, and people in African politics. This year’s selections highlight the latest research on Boko Haram; how the Internet is changing African democracies; and the ongoing struggle to provide public services across the continent. We’ve also included a couple of personal memoirs — one about the experience of growing up in exile from South Africa’s apartheid regime and another about the not-for-the-faint-of-heart adventure of running for office in Nigeria. We hope you’ll check out a few of these books and read along with us this summer as we explore the latest and greatest in African politics writing.
Without further ado, here are the books in the 2019 African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular:
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘June 7: “Love Does Not Win Elections” by Ayisha Osori’, ‘_id’: ‘CONTUL345RAQDMP6632X7VLICU’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘June 14: “Always Another Country” by Sisonke Msimang’, ‘_id’: ‘LUD6ZKZSNVGONJISI7T7NTP6YM’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘June 21: “Amílcar Cabral: A Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary” by Peter Karibe Mendy’, ‘_id’: ‘ZYCNHFDYWFF2TNRIKHD5R2VJDI’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘June 28: “Contradictions of Democracy: Vigilantism and Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa” by Nicholas Rush Smith’, ‘_id’: ‘DLKHS6HMVNDTXOCCO6HW23NB6U’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘July 5: Break’, ‘_id’: ‘KLNVSIW3TZCIFHXXNW3WVA4PFM’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘July 12: “Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror” by Elizabeth Schmidt’, ‘_id’: ’62PDW5PEY5DP5JEIEC3QOC3UYU’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘July 19: “Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Kenya” by Nanjala Nyabola’, ‘_id’: ‘7XQL3E5YZVH4TH4WRXHMRU5NYQ’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘July 26: “First Raise a Flag: How South Sudan Won the Longest War but Lost the Peace” by Peter Martell’, ‘_id’: ‘FIV27EXOGJHQVKSBXKBDI7N22Q’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘August 2: “Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity in Change” by Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle’, ‘_id’: ‘2QBF2XM2RFEJTDJ22KQ72JNVBU’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘August 9: “African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church” by Elizabeth A. Foster’, ‘_id’: ‘ICVYYTADBZE53I5CSTNJEUDWSA’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘August 16: “Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa” by Milli Lake’, ‘_id’: ‘NXEZTP7VJ5D5TN4NVWNFEJVQXE’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘August 23: New Reads on Nigeria, featuring “Boko Haram” by Brandon Kendhammer and Carmen McCain; “Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know” by John Campbell and Matthew T. Page; and “Contemporary Nigerian Politics: Competition in a Time of Transition and Terror” by A. Carl LeVan’, ‘_id’: ‘B6WBDGEQDNGIJPNUUEDFOQIDFI’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
- {‘type’: ‘text’, ‘content’: ‘August 30: “Developing States, Shaping Citizenship: Service Delivery and Political Participation in Zambia” by Erin Accampo Hern’, ‘_id’: ‘7JLUN4CCJRE55EW6OE2WSC5O3Y’, ‘additional_properties’: {‘comments’: [], ‘inline_comments’: []}}
Join us in reading some or all of these books! Jump into the discussion in the comments section or on Twitter using the hashtag #APSRS19.
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