African Studies Quarterly
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African Studies Quarterly Volume 16, Issue 1 December 2015 Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida ISSN: 2152-2448 African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq African Studies Quarterly Executive Staff R. Hunt Davis, Jr. - Editor-in-Chief Todd H. Leedy - Associate Editor Fezile Mtsetfwa - Managing Editor Jessica Horwood - Book Review Editor Editorial Committee Oumar Ba Felicity Tackey-Otoo Fred Boaten Haley Rademacher Lina Benabdallah Rugiyatu Kane Mamadou Bodian Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim Jennifer Boylan Therese Kennelly-Okraku Ben Burgen Nicholas Knowlton Jessica Casimir Eric Lake Amanda Edgell Chesney McOmber Dan Eizenga Donald Underwood Ryan Good Anna Mwaba Victoria Gorham Megan Cogburn Emily Pukuma Riley Ravary Ndubuisi Ezeluomba Renee Bullock Advisory Board Adélékè Adéèko Richard Marcus Ohio State University California State University, Long Beach Timothy Ajani Kelli Moore Fayetteville State University James Madison University Abubakar Alhassan Mantoa Rose Motinyane Bayero University University of Cape Town John W. Arthur James T. Murphy University of South Florida, St. Clark University Petersburg Lilian Temu Osaki Nanette Barkey University of Dar es Salaam Pact International Dianne White Oyler Susan Cooksey Fayetteville State University University of Florida Alex Rödlach Mark Davidheiser Creighton University Nova Southeastern University Jan Shetler Kristin Davis Goshen College International Food Policy Research Roos Willems Institute Catholic University of Leuven Parakh Hoon Peter VonDoepp Saint Martin’s University University of Vermont Andrew Lepp Kent State University African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq © University of Florida Board of Trustees, a public corporation of the State of Florida; permission is hereby granted for individuals to download articles for their own personal use. Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida. African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq Table of Contents Articles Age of Elegance: An Italianate Sobrado on the Gold Coast Courtnay Micots (1-32) Father of the Nation: Ghanaian Nationalism, Internationalism, and the Political Iconography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1957 – 2010 Harcourt Fuller (33-70) At Issue The “Muslims in Ethiopia Complex” and Muslim Identity: The Trilogy of Discourse, Policy, and Identity Mukerrem Miftah (71-92) Review Essays Teaching about Africa: Homocentricity, Afrocentricity, and the Classroom Kenneth Wilburn (93-96) Where Do We Go from Here?: Writing Children into African History D. Dmitri Hurlbut (97-100) Book Reviews Omotade Adegbindin 2014. Ifá in Yorùbá Thought System. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 242 pp. Review by Ogunleye Adetunbi Richard (101-103) Saheed Aderinto. 2015. When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1958. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press. 241 pp. Review by Tom Udo Tom Ekpot (103-104) Rabah Arezki, Thorvaldur Gylfason, and Amadou Sy (eds.). 2011. Beyond the Curse: Policies to Harness the power of Natural Resources. Washington: International Monetary Fund. 275 pp. Review by Percyslage Chigora (104-106) Abdul Karim Bangura (ed.). 2015. Assessing Barack Obama’s Africa Policy: Suggestions for Him and African Leaders. Lanham: University Press of America. 362 pp. Review by Nathaniel Umukoro (106-107) Rita Barnard (ed.). 2014. The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela. New York: Cambridge University Press. 317 pp. Review by Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi (107-108) African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq Bonnie K. Campbell (ed.). 2013. Modes of Governance and Revenue Flows in African Mining. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 253 pp. Review by Felix Kumah-Abiwu (109-110) Grace Davie. 2015. Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: a Social History of Human Science, 1855- 2005. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 334 pp. Review by Utsav Kumar Singh (111-112) Sule E. Egya. 2014. Nation, Power and Dissidence in Third Generation Nigerian Poetry in English. Pretoria: Unisa Press. 177 pp. Review by Timothy T. Ajani (112-113) Roquinaldo Ferreira. 2012. State Fragility, State Formation, and Human Security in Nigeria. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 259 pp. Review by Raymond Cohen and Justin Cohen (113-114) Adam Habib. 2013. South Africa’s Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press; Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 319 pp. Review by Tony Voss (115-116) Ernest Harsch. 2014. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Athens: Ohio University Press. 163 pp. Review by Hervé Tchumkan (116-117) Shireen Hassim. 2014. The ANC Women’s League. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 159 pp. Review by Judit Bagi (118-119) Benjamin N. Lawrance. 2014. Amistad’s Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery and Smuggling. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. 358 pp. Review by Sara C. Jorgensen (119-120) Henning Melber. 2015. Understanding Namibia: The Trials of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press. 256 pp. Review by Sean McClure (120-122) Abdul Raufu Mustapha (ed.). 2014. Sects and Social Disorder: Muslim Identities and Conflicts in Northern Nigeria. Suffolk: James Currey. 234 pp. Review by Yusuf Abdullahi Yusuf (122-123) Patience Mutopo. 2014. Women, Mobility and Rural Livelihoods in Zimbabwe: Experience of Fast Track Land Reform. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. 257 pp. Review by Mediel Hove (123-125) Cosmos Uchenna Nwokeafor (ed.). 2015. Information Communication Technology (ICT) Integration to Educational Curricula: A New Direction for Africa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc. 272 pp. Review by Cyrelene Amoah-Boampong (125-126) African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq Isidore Okpewho. 2014. Blood on the Tides: The Ozidi Saga and Oral Epic Narratology. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. 279 pp. Review by Joshua Ondieki (126-127) Myles Osborne. 2015. Ethnicity and Empire in Kenya: Loyalty and Martial Race among the Kamba, c. 1800 to Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 276 pp. Review by Opolot Okia (127-129) Timothy Raeymaekers. 2014. Violent Capitalism and Hybrid Identity in the Eastern Congo: Power to the Margins. New York: Cambridge University Press. 191 pp. Review by Vanessa van den Boogaard (129-131) Rachel Beatty Riedl. 2014. Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 265 pp. Review by Amanda B. Edgell (131-132) Susana Salgado. 2014. The Internet and Democracy Building in Lusophone African Countries. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. 185 pp. Review by N. Clark Capshaw (133-134) Bereket Habte Selassie. 2014. Emperor Haile Selassie. Athens: Ohio University Press. 147 pp. Review by Terje Østebø (134-135) Kristin Fjelde Tjelle. 2014. Missionary Masculinity, 1870-1930: The Norwegian Missionaries in South-East Africa. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 325 pp. Review by Sara C. Jorgensen (135-136) Gary Wilder. 2015. Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. 384 pp. Review by Mrinmoyee Bhattacharya (136-138) Tukufu Zuberi. 2015. African Independence: How Africa Shapes the World. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 195 pp. Review by Paul Chiudza Banda (138-139) African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1 | December 2015 Age of Elegance: An Italianate Sobrado on the Gold Coast COURTNAY MICOTS Abstract: Upon first glance, two-story buildings constructed in brick and stone in coastal Ghana appear to be British colonial homes. However, though their façades were inspired by British styles, these early colonial period residences were actually built for Africans. Russell House, completed in 1898, manifests a deliberately constructed hybrid style of architecture combining local elements—asymmetry, a courtyard plan and two-story compact massing—with the British Italianate style and Afro-Portuguese sobrado plan. The motivations for such cultural appropriations are complex and require a deep understanding of the social, political and economic contexts in which the houses were built in Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast. An examination of this new style exemplified in the Russell House will demonstrate how coastal elite architecture reflects status, modernity, and resistance to British colonization. Introduction While Londoners were enjoying their fine Italianate homes of the Belle Epoque (1885-1914), elite members of the Gold Coast colony, known today as Ghana, were constructing their own elegant mansions utilizing an Italianate style that not only embraced the modernity and prosperity of the period but also rejected the British administration whose rules constrained them.1 The ruins of the Russell House, once one of the most elegant of these homes, express this lively and tense period of change in Ghanaian history (Figure 1). Upon close examination, the structure manifests a deliberate hybrid style combining a British Italianate exterior, an Afro-Portuguese sobrado plan, and local ideas of space and organization. Russell House exemplifies how coastal elites appropriated and transformed styles and plans to communicate their status and connection to modernity. The lead patron, the Reverend John Oboboam Hammond, a well-