Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2019 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Environmental Studies

In Colonial Transactions, Bernault (Sciences Po), a noted historian of Central Africa, contributes an attempt to fuse related social scientific concepts with her study of spirituality and mysticism in Gabon communities. She articulates a complex adaptive-systems model of the mental and physical worlds, creating an empirical picture of how cross-cultural adaptation and integration occur. Her fascinating chapters deal with religious syncretism, fetish objects, cannibalism narratives, and wealth and collectively show how value--through both economic and cultural transactions--proves to be liquid, embodied as needed in people or ideas. This approach works to generate evenhanded comparisons between colonial Europeans and indigenous Gabonais, and Bernault escapes the traditional colonial power narrative and instead presents a fluid, dynamic systems model of power and belief. However, there is an element of disjointedness if one reads straight through the book, as the chapters do not follow each other as comfortably as the author might have intended. That said, this should be a key text for African studies and certainly for any collection centered on West and Central Africa.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

African studies is a field strongly influenced by deconstruction. Often, our use of language directs the boundaries of what we do and do not know. For an introduction to Africanist scholarship, one could hardly do better than to start with this volume. Desai (English, Univ. of Michigan) and Masquelier (anthropology, Tulane Univ.) have assembled 25 essays examining common topics--religion, politics, language, economics, and more. At one level, this is simply a different approach to an introductory text, e.g., O'Meara and Martin's Africa (3rd ed., 1995). On another, it moves beyond myth busting and challenges the reader to think more deeply. Some of the framing of chapters is particularly inspired: Suzanne Preston Blier's essay, "Design," is easily one of the best introductions to African visual and spatial aesthetics and sensibilities this reviewer has encountered. A shift away from "art"--as in museum pieces--toward "design" seems to have liberated the author to more deeply convey the relationships among artistic expression, psychology, and society. The only weakness of the text is that the essays are short: the reader is left wanting more. Each essay concludes with suggested readings, which helps relieve this feeling.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above.