Obama and Kenya

Matthew Carotenuto is associate professor of history and coordinator of African Studies at St. Lawrence University. He studies the ways Kenyan identities are imagined within the context of colonial violence, postcolonial politics, and indigenous sport. Katherine Luongo is associate professor of history at Northeastern University. Her work examines the supernatural, law, and politics in Africa, and global asylum seeking. Her book, Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900-1955, was a finalist for the Bethwell Ogot Prize and the Martin A. Klein Award.

"In the US, Barack Obama is African; in Africa, he is Kenyan; and in Kenya, he is Luo. ... Historians Carotenuto (St. Lawrence Univ.) and Luongo (Northeastern Univ.) emerge from the pages of this book as a dynamic academic duo as they glide through Kenya's colonial and postindependence periods.... This book also demonstrates that African studies is in good academic hands. Summing up: Recommended." (CHOICE) "This book ... represents a laudable attempt to confront distorted and false depictions of Obama and the Kenyan past and present that have appeared since 2008 in scholarly and nonscholarly works ... In a book that will be useful in American university classrooms and now even more among the general public as Obama is succeeded as chief executive by a long-time purveyor of the 'birther' myth, [Carotenuto and Luongo] effectively dismantle the many stereotypes and myths that have characterized writing about Obama and Kenya by right-wing ideologues outside Kenya." (African Studies Review)