It’s Memorial Day weekend and at TMC, that can only mean one thing: It’s time to announce our selections for the Fourth Annual African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular! As usual, we’ll be featuring book reviews, guest posts and author Q&As on some of the best books published on African politics in 2016 and 2017.
For the purpose of this series, we define “politics” broadly, and look to feature books that shed light on important issues in African politics, from how communities understand female genital cutting to the latest research on Boko Haram and other Islamic extremists in the Sahel to fascinating new biographies of current and former leaders across the continent to lighter reads by journalists with long experience covering the continent.
We hope you’ll join us in reading some or all of these books, and asking questions in the comments section below or on Twitter using the hashtag #APSRS17. Here’s a link to a list of all 16 books on Amazon.com.
Without further ado, our selections for the 2017 African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular are:
June 2 — “Investing in Authoritarian Rule: Punishment and Patronage in Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts for Genocide Crimes,” by Anuradha Chakravarty
June 9 — “Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian Heritage Societies,” by Claire Adida, David Laitin, and Marie-Anne Valfort
June 16 — “Allies or Adversaries? NGOs and the State in Africa,” by Jennifer Brass
June 23 — We’ll feature two new books this week, both on politics and Islam in Nigeria: “Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria,” by Brandon Kendhammer and “Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics,” by Alexander Thurston
June 30 — Happy Fourth of July weekend!
July 7 — “‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel:’ the Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram,” by Andrew Walker
July 14 — “African Miracle, African Mirage: Transnational Politics and the Pardox of Modernization in Ivory Coast,” by Abou Bamba
July 21 — “When the Walking Defeats You: One Man’s Journey as Joseph Kony’s Bodyguard,” by Ledio Cakaj
July 28 — “Innovating Development Strategies in Africa: the Role of International, Regional and National Actors,” by Landry Signé
Aug. 4 — New Biographies on African Leaders, featuring “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,” by Pamela Scully, “Thabo Mbeki,” by Adekeye Adebajo, and “Julius Nyerere,” by Paul Bjerk
Aug. 11 — “The Riddle of Malnutrition: the Long Arc of Biomedical and Public Health Interventions in Uganda,” by Jennifer Tappan
Aug. 18 — “Making the Mark: Gender, Identity, and Genital Cutting,” by Miroslava Prazak
Aug. 25 — Beach Reads, featuring lighter, late-summer reads by journalists who cover Africa “The Mayor of Mogadishu: a Story of Chaos and Redemption in the Ruins of Somalia” by Andrew Harding and “Love, Africa: a Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival” by Jeffrey Gettleman.
Of course, this list is subject to change, and we have been known to throw in a bonus read or two over the years. We look forward to another summer of great reads on politics in Africa!
Did you miss the first, second or third years of our summer reading series? Catch up on them all here!