Few African countries have attracted
the international attention that Ghana has. In the late-nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, the then-colonial Gold Coast emerged
as a key political and intellectual hub for British West Africa. Half
a century later, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan state to
emerge from European colonial rule, it became a key site for a
burgeoning, transnational, African anticolonial politics that drew
activists, freedom fighters, and intellectuals from around the world.
As the twentieth century came to a close, Ghana also became an
international symbol of the putative successes of post-Cold-War
African liberalization and democratization projects.
Here
Jeffrey Ahlman narrates this rich political history stretching from
the beginnings of the very idea of the "Gold Coast" to the
country's 1992 democratization, which paved the way for the Fourth
Republic. At the same time, he offers a rich social history
stretching that examines the sometimes overlapping, sometimes
divergent nature of what it means to be Ghanaian through discussions
of marriage, ethnicity, and migration; of cocoa as a cultural system;
of the multiple meanings of chieftaincy; and of other contemporary
markers of identity. Throughout it all, Ahlman distills decades of
work by other scholars while also drawing on a wide array of
archival, oral, journalistic, and governmental sources in order to
provide his own fresh insights.
For
its clear, comprehensive coverage not only of Ghanaian history, but
also of the major debates shaping nineteenth- and twentieth-century
African politics and society more broadly, Ghana:
A Political and Social History
is a must-read for students and scholars of African Studies.
