In A Tapestry of African Histories: With Longer Times and Wider Geopolitics, contributors demonstrate that African historians are neither comfortable nor content with studying continental or global geopolitical, social, and economic events across the superficial divide of time as if they were disparate or disconnected. Instead, the chapters within the volume reevaluate African history through a geopolitically transcendent lens that brings African countries into conversation with other pertinent histories both within and outside of the continent. The collection analyzes the pre- and post-colonial eras within African countries such as Kenya, Malawi, and Sudan, examining major historical figures and events, struggles for independence and stability, contemporary urban settlements, social and economic development, as well as constitutional, legal, and human rights issues that began in the colonial era and persist to this day.
Nicholas K. Githuku is assistant professor of African History at CUNY, York College.
Introduction: The Future of History: Transtemporal, Transnational across Geographical Borders Nicholas Kariuki Githuku Chapter 1: On Writing Kenya's History John Lonsdale Chapter 2: From the Upper Delaware River to the Banks of the Monongahela via Lake Victoria Robert M. Maxon Chapter 3: Myth and Reality in the Forging of a Kenyan National History: Oginga Odinga's Heroism Robert M. Maxon Chapter 4: Daniel arap Moi: A Challenge for Historians Robert M. Maxon Chapter 5: Ainsworth after Dark: The Pied Piper of African Development in Colonial Kenya, 1895-1920? Okia Opolot Chapter 6: Challenge to African Democracy: The Activism and Assassination of Pio Gama Pinto Godriver Odhiambo Chapter 7: Eastlands, Nairobi: Memory, History, and Recovery Betty Wambui Chapter 8: Plagues and Pestilences in Late Nineteenth-Century Samburuland George L. Simpson, Jr., and Peter Waweru Chapter 9: The Evolution of Imperial Social Development Policy and Practice in British Sudan: A Comparative Case Study of the Gezira and Zande Schemes Joseph M. Snyder Chapter 10: Illusions about a Boom in Cotton Production in Southern Nyanza during the Depression, 1929-1939 Peter Odhiambo Ndege Chapter 11: Community Development in Post-Independence Malawi: Deciphering Some Local Voices Gift Wasambo Kayira Chapter 12: Regime Policing and the Stifling of the Human Rights Agenda: Late Colonial and Post-Colonial Malawi, 1948-Present Paul Chiudza Banda Chapter 13: The Constitution and Change-the-Constitution Debate in Independent Kenya, 1963-2002 Anne Nangulu Chapter 14: The Building Bridges Initiative Deja vu: "A Whitewash Process Taking Us Forward by Taking Us Backwards" Nicholas Kariuki Githuku and Robert Maxon Chapter 15: House of Mlungula- "Norms in the Margins and Margins of the Norm:" Of Computer "Glitches," Moving Human Fingers and Illicit Financial Flows Nicholas Kariuki Githuku
Editor Nicholas Githuku sharply exposes Kenya's contemporary moral economy of corruption and the many illicit financial flows that hide stolen riches.... For anyone interested in Kenya, this is an important book despite, or even because of, the array of disparate contributions. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. * Choice Reviews *
