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Environmental History (African Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2. Environmental history, the study of how human societies and the natural world shape each other over time, developed fairly recently as a distinct field of historical inquiry. It emerged in the 1960s at about the same time as the modern academic study of African history, and the two fields influenced each other from the beginning. African historical studies though brought a slightly different approach to the field of environmental history. Beginning with Phillip Curtin’s work on the epidemiology of the slave trade, Africanist historians focused on how environmental conditions shaped human actions as much as on how human societies changed environments. African environmental history has tended to counter narratives brought forward from the colonial era. Throughout Africa, colonial powers both claimed that African societies harmed their environments because of lack of knowledge and skill and threatened precious landscapes and their animal occupants. In contrast, works on African environmental history draw on a variety of techniques to uncover how environment and society shaped each other. Rather than presenting Africa as an untouched Eden, such studies stretch back to the origins of agriculture and animal husbandry to demonstrate that the landscapes of Africa were both anthropogenic and resilient. Environmental history in Africa exhibits several central themes. First, it tends to focus on rural areas and agrarian change. While many African societies underwent rapid urbanization by the beginning of the 21st century, throughout the 20th century much of Africa remained sparsely populated and most Africans lived in rural agricultural or pastoral societies. African environmental history studies the lived-in environment, not natural history. A major theme of African environmental history has been the conflict over wildlife and forest conservation. Numerous studies have shown that colonial and post-colonial conservation efforts have deprived African communities of access to resources and land they had long controlled. Likewise, many studies have focused on the issues of soil conservation and agricultural intensification. For all its maturity now as a field, there remain important issues that have not been adequately addressed in the literature. First, the environmental history of urbanization in Africa has only just begun to receive attention. Second, as Africa industrializes, the issue of pollution has hardly been addressed. Finally, the effects of anthropogenic climate change need to be put into the context of the long-term ways that human societies have shaped African environments.
  3.  
  4. General Works
  5. Several prominent environmental historians have produced overviews of the field as it matured. Beinart 2000 provides a historiographic essay while McCann 1999 uses cases studies to highlight important issues in the field. Maddox 2006 attempts a synthesis stretching back to the emergence of modern humans in Africa. Beinart and McGregor 2003 presents a representative set of case studies. The comparative history Beinart and Coates 1995 highlights the similarities between the United States and South Africa. Tilley 2011 examines the production of scientific knowledge about Africa during the colonial era. Isaacman’s essay (Isaacman 1990) links protest movements to the relationships between power, community, and environment.
  6.  
  7. Beinart, William. “African History and Environmental History.” African Affairs 99 (2000): 269–302.
  8.  
  9. DOI: 10.1093/afraf/99.395.269Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  10.  
  11. A review of the field by one of its leading scholars; Beinart finds that African environmental history has emphasized the capacity of human action to shape the environment and the ways in which Africans have developed unique explanations for their lives in the biological world.
  12.  
  13. Find this resource:
  14.  
  15.  
  16. Beinart, William, and Peter Coates. Environment and History: The Taming of Nature in the USA and South Africa. New York: Routledge, 1995.
  17.  
  18. DOI: 10.4324/9780203295786Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19.  
  20. This comparative study focuses on the similarities in the establishment of settler societies and their emergence as industrial ones by the 20th century. While immigrants did not demographically overwhelm indigenous populations in South Africa as they did in the United States, many similarities exist in views of nature and eventually conservation between the two societies.
  21.  
  22. Find this resource:
  23.  
  24.  
  25. Beinart, William, and JoAnn McGregor, eds. Social History and African Environments. Oxford: James Currey, 2003.
  26.  
  27. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  28.  
  29. This collection serves as a primer for environmental history in Africa. Essays by some of the most important historians in the field reveal the range and depth of the subject. The introduction serves as an excellent survey of the field.
  30.  
  31. Find this resource:
  32.  
  33.  
  34. Isaacman, Allen F. “Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa.” African Studies Review 33.2 (1990): 1–120.
  35.  
  36. DOI: 10.2307/524470Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  37.  
  38. This influential article examines agrarian change across the continent, focusing mostly on the colonial era. While the focus is primarily social, the author highlights the importance of linking rural societies to their environments.
  39.  
  40. Find this resource:
  41.  
  42.  
  43. Leach, Melissa, and Robin Mearns, eds. The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996.
  44.  
  45. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  46.  
  47. This path-breaking collection of essays presents a powerful counter to degradationist views of environmental change in Africa. The authors of these essays argue that much current environmental policy is wrongly based on colonial images of Africans as ineffectual managers of natural resources.
  48.  
  49. Find this resource:
  50.  
  51.  
  52. Maddox, Gregory H. Sub-Saharan African: An Environmental History. Santa Barbara: ABC/CLIO, 2006.
  53.  
  54. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  55.  
  56. This work provides a survey of African environmental history, attempting to show the mutually constructive relationship between African environments and society over the long term.
  57.  
  58. Find this resource:
  59.  
  60.  
  61. McCann, James C. Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800–1990. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.
  62.  
  63. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  64.  
  65. McCann’s overview of environmental change in Africa uses case studies to illustrate how Africans have managed their landscapes. Key themes include agricultural change, disease, population, and state agency.
  66.  
  67. Find this resource:
  68.  
  69.  
  70. Tilley, Helen. Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
  71.  
  72. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226803487.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  73.  
  74. Tilley contests the idea of colonial science as over-determined by power relationships. She shows how much of the current focus on African adaptability had its counterpoint in British colonial research on African environments.
  75.  
  76. Find this resource:
  77.  
  78.  
  79. Textbooks on African History
  80. Two general survey textbooks on African history do a particularly good job of situating change in African societies within their changing environments. Ehret 2002 focuses on the interplay between environment and culture up to 1800 while Iliffe 1995 argues that Africans and African societies struggled to survive in harsh and variable environments.
  81.  
  82. Ehret, Christopher. The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2002.
  83.  
  84. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  85.  
  86. Ehret’s survey text is intended for college courses. He integrates environment into his analysis of Africa up to 1800 showing how historical linguistics and archaeology can help reconstruct how human societies used their environments.
  87.  
  88. Find this resource:
  89.  
  90.  
  91. Iliffe, John. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  92.  
  93. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  94.  
  95. This relatively brief introductory text to African history by one of its most acclaimed practitioners puts the relationship of African societies to their environments at the center of its analysis. Iliffe notably describes African history as a history of frontiers in “an especially hostile region of the world.”
  96.  
  97. Find this resource:
  98.  
  99.  
  100. Reference Works and Journals
  101. Being a relatively young field, environmental history in general has not developed a bibliographic tradition. Fenton and Heffron 1987 and Obudho and Foeken 1999 are subject bibliographies that cover specialized topics. Vogel 1997 is a comprehensive reference work for environmental history. The three websites—Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Robert S. Strauss Center, and United Nations Environment Programme—listed have good collections of documents on African environments within them. Environment and History and Environmental History are the two leading journals in the broader filed of environmental history and the Journal of Historical Geography includes many articles on African environments. African environmental history appears in many Africanist journals as well as general historical journals. Robert S. Strauss Center website contains information on the effects of the current era of anthropogenic climate change. Please see also the Oxford Bibliographies articles on Environment and Geography and the Study of Africa.
  102.  
  103. Environment and History.
  104.  
  105. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  106.  
  107. This Europe-based journal has good coverage of global environmental history. Almost every issue includes articles and reviews that at least touch on Africa.
  108.  
  109. Find this resource:
  110.  
  111.  
  112. Environmental History.
  113.  
  114. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  115.  
  116. The journal of the American Society of Environmental History, it regularly publishes articles on global and African environmental history.
  117.  
  118. Find this resource:
  119.  
  120.  
  121. Fenton, Thomas P., and Mary J. Heffron. Food, Hunger, Agribusiness: A Directory of Resources. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987.
  122.  
  123. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  124.  
  125. A comprehensive bibliography on the food crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, it offers mostly progressive and radical voices in the debate.
  126.  
  127. Find this resource:
  128.  
  129.  
  130. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
  131.  
  132. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  133.  
  134. The website of the UN-backed body that documents climate change. The organization has been in the forefront of producing evidence of the human origin of change. The reports archived here contain much data on Africa.
  135.  
  136. Find this resource:
  137.  
  138.  
  139. Journal of Historical Geography.
  140.  
  141. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  142.  
  143. The journal includes historical articles in its scope and often includes articles on African environmental history.
  144.  
  145. Find this resource:
  146.  
  147.  
  148. Obudho, R. A., and D. W. J. Foeken. Urban Agriculture in Africa: A Bibliographical Survey. Vol. 58 Research Reports. Leiden, The Netherlands: African Studies Center, 1999.
  149.  
  150. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  151.  
  152. This collection covers the debate over urban agriculture.
  153.  
  154. Find this resource:
  155.  
  156.  
  157. The Robert S. Strauss Center. “Climate Change and African Political Stability.”
  158.  
  159. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  160.  
  161. The website of a US Department of Defense–funded project to study the effect of climate change on political stability in Africa at the University of Texas, it provides extensive historical data as well as recent publications.
  162.  
  163. Find this resource:
  164.  
  165.  
  166. United Nations Environment Programme. “Environment for Development.”
  167.  
  168. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  169.  
  170. This website collects information and reports on environmental change globally from United Nations’ sources.
  171.  
  172. Find this resource:
  173.  
  174.  
  175. Vogel, Joseph O., ed. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa: Archaeology, History, Languages, Cultures, and Environments. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 1997.
  176.  
  177. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  178.  
  179. This single-volume encyclopedia brings together brief articles by many of the leading scholars in their fields. It is an invaluable reference work for environmental history in Africa.
  180.  
  181. Find this resource:
  182.  
  183.  
  184. Climate Change
  185. Despite the legitimate concern over the earth’s changing climate during the last several decades, climate has always varied over the course of centuries and millennia. In the past, climate has changed—warmed or cooled, become wetter or drier—due to a large variety of interconnected “natural” factors, as Nicholson 1979 and Hassan 1997 show. McCann 1999 surveys the relationship between climate change and human history. Chami 2003, McIntosh 1993, and Schmidt 1997 are works by archaeologists that explore the methods of reconstructing both climate change and its effects on human societies. Schoenbrun 1994 does the same using linguistic and biological evidence.
  186.  
  187. Chami, Felix A. “Climate Change on the Coast of East Africa since 3000 B.C.: Archaeological Indications.” In Climate Change, Trade and Modes of Production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Edited by Felix A. Chami, Gilbert Pwiti, and Chantal Radimilahy, 1–20. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Dar es Salaam University Press, 2003.
  188.  
  189. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  190.  
  191. Chami uses data from a number of sites along the coast to confirm the general pattern of East African climate change from wetter to drier at about 2000 BCE with moderate fluctuation since then. Of particular importance were a wetter phase between up to about 500 CE and then drier periods between 600 and 900 CE and 1200 and 1400 CE.
  192.  
  193. Find this resource:
  194.  
  195.  
  196. Hassan, Fekri A. “Holocene Palaeoclimates of Africa.” African Archaeological Review 14.4 (1997): 213–230.
  197.  
  198. DOI: 10.1023/A:1022255800388Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199.  
  200. Hassan uses palynological and geomorphic data to show that African climates have varied across the last 12,000 years with a generally dry era beginning about 4,500 years ago. He notes sharp regional variations in patterns.
  201.  
  202. Find this resource:
  203.  
  204.  
  205. McCann, James C. “Climate and Causation in African History.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 32.2–3 (1999): 261–279.
  206.  
  207. DOI: 10.2307/220342Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  208.  
  209. McCann argues that African environmental history has taken climate change as an external factor rather than as a subject for research. Such a focus calls into question some prevailing views of the source of environmental change focused on local land and resource use.
  210.  
  211. Find this resource:
  212.  
  213.  
  214. McIntosh, Roderick J. “The Pulse Model: Genesis and Accommodation of Specialization in the Middle Niger.” Journal of African History 34.2 (1993): 181–220.
  215.  
  216. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700033326Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  217.  
  218. McIntosh develops a model to explain occupational and ethnic “layering” in the West African Sahel. He posits that climate cycles moved people farther north during wetter times and compacted populations in drier eras in pulse-like movements that create the context for the development of early cities in the region.
  219.  
  220. Find this resource:
  221.  
  222.  
  223. Nicholson, S. E. “The Methodology of Historical Climate Reconstruction and Its Application to Africa.” Journal of African History 20 (1979): 31–49.
  224.  
  225. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700016704Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  226.  
  227. Nicholson surveys the sources for understanding climate changes in Africa. Based on a variety of evidence she concludes that broadly Africa was wetter from the 8th through 14th centuries, drier from the 14th to the 19th and wetter from then until the middle of the 20th century when a new dry phase began.
  228.  
  229. Find this resource:
  230.  
  231.  
  232. Schmidt, Peter R. “Archaeological Views on a History of Landscape Change in East Africa.” Journal of African History 38.3 (1997): 393–421.
  233.  
  234. DOI: 10.1017/S002185379700697XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235.  
  236. Schmidt shows that iron production in the area west of Lake Victoria with its high demand for charcoal as fuel led to at least two distinct periods when the region lost forest cover, one in the period from the 1st to the 7th centuries of the current era and again from the 14th to the 19th centuries.
  237.  
  238. Find this resource:
  239.  
  240.  
  241. Schoenbrun, David Lee. “The Contours of Vegetation Change and Human Agency in Eastern Africa’s Great Lakes Region: Ca. 2000 BC to ca. AD 1000.” History in Africa 21 (1994): 269–302.
  242.  
  243. DOI: 10.2307/3171889Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  244.  
  245. Using analysis of pollen cores, Schoenbrun reconstructs vegetation change in the Great Lakes region, finding that primary forests declined after 500 BCE and secondary forest as well as grasses and cultivated plants increased. He links these changes to the intensification of agriculture and stock-raising in the region.
  246.  
  247. Find this resource:
  248.  
  249.  
  250. Agriculture
  251. Sub-Saharan Africa remains primarily an agricultural land with a history of agriculture dating back at least five thousand years. The Lost Crops of Africa series documents the many crops domesticated in Africa. Hawthorne 2003 looks at transformations in agriculture during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Hart 1982 and Richards 1985 debate the resilience of West African agriculture while Carney 2001 shows how it helped change the New World. Maddox, et al. 1996 presents case studies demonstrating the variety of ways East African agricultural societies created their environments. Davis 2007 examines the environmental impact of colonial rule in North Africa. McCann 2004 charts the impact of a New World crop on Africa. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies article on Food and Food Production.
  252.  
  253. Carney, Judith A. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
  254.  
  255. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  256.  
  257. Africans domesticated their own species of rice in West Africa. This book shows how Africans transferred rice production from West Africa to the plantations of the Carolinas in North America.
  258.  
  259. Find this resource:
  260.  
  261.  
  262. Davis, Diana K. Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007.
  263.  
  264. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  265.  
  266. The author describes how colonial environmental narratives, especially those involving overgrazing, deforestation, and desertification, were used to exploit local people. She challenges the old argument that “Arab” invasions destroyed the North African environment.
  267.  
  268. Find this resource:
  269.  
  270.  
  271. Hart, Keith. The Political Economy of West African Agriculture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
  272.  
  273. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511558016Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  274.  
  275. Hart’s massive study argues that control over labor served as the most important determinant of agricultural productivity in West Africa. He suggests that capital is needed to intensify agricultural production.
  276.  
  277. Find this resource:
  278.  
  279.  
  280. Hawthorne, Walter. Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400–1900. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.
  281.  
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283.  
  284. Hawthorne argues that rice farming in coastal mangrove swamps expanded during the era of the Atlantic slave trade as Balanta communities sought refuge from slave raids and increased the amount of iron they used in both tools and weapons. He shows how the era saw reconfigured social relations through engagement with the trade.
  285.  
  286. Find this resource:
  287.  
  288.  
  289. Maddox, Gregory H., James L. Giblin, and I. N. Kimambo, eds. Custodians of the Land: Ecology and Culture in Tanzanian History. London: James Currey, 1996.
  290.  
  291. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  292.  
  293. This collection of essays covers local struggles during the colonial era in Tanzania over land and resources. The book reflects the depth of environmental history about the nation.
  294.  
  295. Find this resource:
  296.  
  297.  
  298. McCann, James C. Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
  299.  
  300. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  301.  
  302. This book is a masterful study of the spread of the new crop into Africa, where it became the most important food crop by the late 20th century. The work covers not only the agronomic but also social and political aspects of this history.
  303.  
  304. Find this resource:
  305.  
  306.  
  307. National Research Council, Board on Science and Technology for International Development. Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 1 Grains. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996
  308.  
  309. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  310.  
  311. Part of a three-volume collection contains comprehensive information on crops domesticated in Africa, volume 2 covers vegetables and volume 3 fruits. It includes important information on the environmental conditions necessary for their successful cultivation.
  312.  
  313. Find this resource:
  314.  
  315.  
  316. Richards, Paul. Indigenous Agricultural Revolution: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa. London: Hutchinson, 1985.
  317.  
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319.  
  320. Richards forcefully argues that West African farmers both know how to best fruitfully use resources in their environments and that they will actively seek improvements when it is in their interest.
  321.  
  322. Find this resource:
  323.  
  324.  
  325. Ancient Agriculture
  326. Early scholarship assumed that agriculture spread into Africa from outside and came later than in other parts of the world, see the Oxford Bibliographies articles Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism and Food and Food Production for evidence on this debate. African agricultural systems developed a large variety of techniques adapted to particular environments as shown in the essays in Sutton 1996. Hughes 1992 and Hassan 1997 argue that ancient Egypt developed a sustainable society based on the Nile River. Sutton 1984 and Widgren and Sutton 2004 provide evidence for complex intensification across Africa. Schoenbrun 1998 examines the development of a unique interconnected agricultural and pastoral system: the East African Great Lakes.
  327.  
  328. Hassan, Fekri A. “The Dynamics of a Riverine Civilization: A Geoarchaeological Perspective on the Nile Valley, Egypt.” World Archaeology 29.1 (1997): 51–74.
  329.  
  330. DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1997.9980363Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331.  
  332. Hassan explores the influence of the Nile on the development of Egyptian civilization. He argues that the annual flood created the possibility of early agricultural development as well as facilitated trade.
  333.  
  334. Find this resource:
  335.  
  336.  
  337. Hughes, J. Donald. “Sustainable Agriculture in Ancient Egypt.” Agricultural History 66.2 (1992): 12–22.
  338.  
  339. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  340.  
  341. Hughes argues that the long stability of ancient Egyptian civilization developed from its sustainable agriculture based on the annual flood of the Nile River. He shows how over time irrigation works extended the area of cultivable land.
  342.  
  343. Find this resource:
  344.  
  345.  
  346. Schoenbrun, David Lee. A Green Place, a Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
  347.  
  348. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  349.  
  350. This study uses comparative linguistics, archaeology, and environmental studies to recover the history of human settlement and landscape change in the Great Lakes region. Schoenbrun links ideas of healing and society expressed in language to the specific environments of the region.
  351.  
  352. Find this resource:
  353.  
  354.  
  355. Sutton, J. E. G. “Irrigation and Soil Conservation in African Agricultural History: With a Reconsideration of the Inyanga Terracing (Zimbabwe) and Engaruka Irrigation Works (Tanzania).” Journal of African History 25.1 (1984): 25–41.
  356.  
  357. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700022544Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  358.  
  359. Sutton describes two extinct agricultural systems that used the techniques of intensification, irrigation, and hillside terracing. He suggests that they should be seen as specialized adaptations to isolated circumstances.
  360.  
  361. Find this resource:
  362.  
  363.  
  364. Sutton, J. E. G., ed. The Growth of Farming Communities in Africa from the Equator Southwards. Nairobi, Kenya: British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1996.
  365.  
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367.  
  368. This collection of essays by leading archaeologists, linguistic historians, and historians provides a comprehensive overview of the transformation of African landscapes south of the Equator over the last 3,000 years.
  369.  
  370. Find this resource:
  371.  
  372.  
  373. Widgren, Mats, and John E. G. Sutton, eds. Islands of Intensive Agriculture in Eastern Africa. Oxford: James Currey, 2004.
  374.  
  375. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  376.  
  377. These essays present examples of different types of indigenous agricultural intensification from Tanzania to Ethiopia. The authors emphasize both the way in which these systems are attuned to particular environments as well as their fragility.
  378.  
  379. Find this resource:
  380.  
  381.  
  382. Modern Agriculture
  383. African environmental historians have produced an impressive amount of literature on rural societies and their environments. This social approach to environmental history sets Africanist works apart from other environmental history. McCann 1995 describes the unique indigenous plough agriculture of Ethiopia. Koponen 1988 and Mandala 1990 look at African societies in the transition to colonial rule. Berry 1993 shows how agriculture retained throughout the colonial era a strong social component. Lawi 1999, Adams and Anderson 1988, and Amanor and Pabi 2007 explore changes caused by the expansion of markets and government policies in the colonial and postcolonial eras.
  384.  
  385. Adams, William M., and David M. Anderson. “Irrigation before Development: Indigenous and Induced Change in Agricultural Water Management in East Africa.” African Affairs 87.349 (1988): 519–535.
  386.  
  387. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  388.  
  389. The article shows that irrigation had been adopted widely across East Africa in very specific settings. However, attempts to impose both large-scale and small-scale irrigation projects need to take into account local environmental and social conditions.
  390.  
  391. Find this resource:
  392.  
  393.  
  394. Amanor, Kojo S., and Opoku Pabi. “Space, Time, Rhetoric and Agricultural Change in the Transition Zone of Ghana.” Human Ecology 35.1 (2007): 51–67.
  395.  
  396. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-006-9081-6Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  397.  
  398. The authors argue that land use change over the last fifty years in Brong Ahafo, Ghana, has reflected a number of state initiatives and farmer responses to changing economic conditions. Synthetic maize farming has declined and tree plantations and market gardening increased in light of changing policies and the development of infrastructure.
  399.  
  400. Find this resource:
  401.  
  402.  
  403. Berry, Sara. No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
  404.  
  405. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  406.  
  407. Berry takes a comparative approach to analyzing land use and agrarian change in Africa. She argues that in the face of both environmental variability and change as well as uncertain relationships with markets and states, rural communities continue to pursue agricultural practices that emphasize flexibility and social relationships.
  408.  
  409. Find this resource:
  410.  
  411.  
  412. Guyer, Jane I. An African Niche Economy: Farming to Feed Ibadan, 1968–88. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
  413.  
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415.  
  416. Guyer shows that agricultural production increased in one region of Nigeria in response to the rapid growth of urban demand. She shows that producers intensified production by shortening fallow periods and increasing inputs.
  417.  
  418. Find this resource:
  419.  
  420.  
  421. Koponen, Juhani. People and Production in Late Precolonial Tanzania: History and Structures. Uppsala, Sweden: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1988.
  422.  
  423. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  424.  
  425. Koponen’s work serves as an amplification and corrective to Kjekshus’s provocative findings. Koponen argues that while precolonial societies certainly reproduced themselves, they also often faced crises and invested in social relations as a means of hedging.
  426.  
  427. Find this resource:
  428.  
  429.  
  430. Lawi, Y. Q. “Where Physical and Ideological Landscapes Meet: Landscape Use and Ecological Knowledge Use in Iraqw, Northern Tanzania, 1920s–1950s.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 32.2–3 (1999): 281–310.
  431.  
  432. DOI: 10.2307/220343Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  433.  
  434. Lawi argues that changing land use in central Tanzania over the 20th century reflects a dynamic relationship between local knowledge, environmental change, and broader political and economic change.
  435.  
  436. Find this resource:
  437.  
  438.  
  439. Mandala, Elias C. Work and Control in a Peasant Economy: A History of the Lower Tchiri Valley in Malawi, 1859–1960. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
  440.  
  441. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  442.  
  443. Mandala presents a masterful study of communities and their environments in Malawi. He emphasizes the importance of labor in shaping environment.
  444.  
  445. Find this resource:
  446.  
  447.  
  448. McCann, James C. People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
  449.  
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451.  
  452. The 2,000-year-old ox plow system of agriculture in Ethiopia made it one of the most advanced in Africa, yet in the 20th century, the country suffered repeated devastating famines. McCann chronicles the history of the system across the highlands and notes its change with the rapid emergence of maize as a major crop in the late 20th century.
  453.  
  454. Find this resource:
  455.  
  456.  
  457. Settler Estates and Cash Crops
  458. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Africans became producers of commercial crops as the industrial revolution reduced the cost of transport. In southern Africa and some parts of eastern Africa, settlement by Europeans led to the development of settler estates employing African labor; Vail 1977 discusses the impact of these policies in eastern Zambia. Struggles over the expansion of cash crops is covered in Bassett 2001, Isaacman and Roberts 1995, Isaacman 1996, and Ruf 2011. Alexander 2006 and Beinart, et al. 1986 look at the expansion of white settlers. Sabea 2008 examines the case of sisal plantations in Tanzania.
  459.  
  460. Alexander, Jocelyn. The Unsettled Land: State-Making & the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe, 1893–2003. Oxford: James Currey, 2006.
  461.  
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463.  
  464. Struggles over control of land did not end when Zimbabwe finally obtained majority rule in 1980. The struggle over land rights that erupted in violence after 2000 had its roots not just in the dispossession of Africans by white settlers in the colonial era but also in differing conceptions of authority and control between local communities, political leaders, and the state.
  465.  
  466. Find this resource:
  467.  
  468.  
  469. Bassett, Thomas J. The Peasant Cotton Revolution in West Africa: Côte D’Ivoire, 1880–1995. African Studies 101. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  470.  
  471. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  472.  
  473. Bassett’s study of cotton production focuses on the postcolonial period and shows how rural producers adapted to changing external conditions in the production of the crop. He shows that they shifted between high-input intensive production and low-input extensive production in ways that responded to changing levels of subsidies and organized to gain greater control over their markets.
  474.  
  475. Find this resource:
  476.  
  477.  
  478. Beinart, William, Peter Delius, and Stanley Trapido, eds. Putting a Plough to the Ground: Accumulation and Dispossession in Rural South Africa, 1850–1930. Johannesburg: Raven, 1986.
  479.  
  480. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  481.  
  482. This collection of essays consists of case studies of the rise of capitalist farming in South Africa. The cases document how white settlers tried to use power to disposses blacks and turn them into laborers on white-owned estates. The studies place each case within its environmental context.
  483.  
  484. Find this resource:
  485.  
  486.  
  487. Isaacman, Allen F. Cotton in the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996.
  488.  
  489. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  490.  
  491. This history of Portuguese efforts to force Africans to grow cotton shows how the colonial state attempted to control almost every aspect of rural life. It documents the environmental changes brought about by the effort as well as the violence of the colonial state and the resistance and coping strategies of African farmers.
  492.  
  493. Find this resource:
  494.  
  495.  
  496. Isaacman, Allen F., and Richard Roberts, eds. Cotton, Colonialism, and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.
  497.  
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499.  
  500. The case studies in this volume document the checkered history of cotton cultivation in modern Africa. In most of the cases presented cotton failed miserably.
  501.  
  502. Find this resource:
  503.  
  504.  
  505. Ruf, François Olivier. “The Myth of Complex Cocoa Agroforests: The Case of Ghana.” Human Ecology 39.3 (2011): 373–388.
  506.  
  507. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-011-9392-0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  508.  
  509. In Ghana, where farmers developed a mixed agroforest technique for cocoa in the early 20th century, many areas are now shifting to full sun farms that resemble monocultures. The authors examine why this shift has occurred and argue that a mosaic pattern of land use with farms mixed with commercial forests could become more common.
  510.  
  511. Find this resource:
  512.  
  513.  
  514. Sabea, Hanan. “Mastering the Landscape? Sisal Plantations, Land, and Labor in Tanga Region, 1893–1980s.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 41.3 (2008): 411–432.
  515.  
  516. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  517.  
  518. The author charts the rise and fall of sisal plantations in Tanzania, arguing that local communities contested efforts by the colonial governments to divide space between African and plantation sectors.
  519.  
  520. Find this resource:
  521.  
  522.  
  523. Vail, Leroy. “Ecology and History: The Example of Eastern Zambia.” Journal of Southern African Studies 3.2 (1977): 129–155.
  524.  
  525. DOI: 10.1080/03057077708707969Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  526.  
  527. Vail shows how British colonial rule in eastern Zambia coincided with the loss of cattle due to rinderpest and then introduced policies including game protection, forced concentration of population, and land alienation for white settlers that completed the impoverishment of local communities. Sleeping sickness spread and the region became a labor reserve for Southern Rhodesia.
  528.  
  529. Find this resource:
  530.  
  531.  
  532. Pastoralism and Animal Husbandry
  533. Pastoralism is a way of life based on herding animals, usually including some level of mobility as herds are moved following the season. Over the 20th century in some regions more settled forms of stock-raising have increased in importance, but mobile herding remains common across Africa. Please see also the Oxford Bibliography article Pastoralism.
  534.  
  535. Early Pastoralism
  536. Wendorf, et al. 1985 demonstrates that pastoralism developed in what is now the Sahara almost 8,000 years ago. Gifford-Gonzalez 1998 charts its expansion in East Africa. Waller 1985, Sutton 1993, and Galaty 1993 discuss the emergence of Maasai pastoralism in the modern era. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies article on Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism.
  537.  
  538. Galaty, John G. “Maasai Expansion and the New East African Pastoralism.” In Being Maasai. Edited by Thomas Spear and Richard Waller, 61–86. Oxford: James Currey, 1993.
  539.  
  540. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  541.  
  542. The article argues that “pure” pastoralism among the Maasai developed over the last four centuries as part of a process of interaction between environment and social factors.
  543.  
  544. Find this resource:
  545.  
  546.  
  547. Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane. “Early Pastoralists in East Africa: Ecological and Social Dimensions.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17.2 (1998): 166–200.
  548.  
  549. DOI: 10.1006/jaar.1998.0322Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  550.  
  551. The article shows that pastoral societies existed in northern Kenya as early as 5,000 years ago and that animal husbandry moved south through Kenya and Tanzania responding to a dynamic and diverse environment.
  552.  
  553. Find this resource:
  554.  
  555.  
  556. Sutton, J. E. G. “Becoming Maasailand.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa. Edited by Thomas Spear and Richard Waller, 38–60. Oxford: James Currey, 1993.
  557.  
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559.  
  560. Sutton argues that the Maasai as an extensive, pastoralist ethnic and linguistic community expanded from northwestern Kenya south as far as central Tanzania only in the last 300 years. Previously, the lands had been occupied by numerous communities, including ones that practiced irrigated agriculture.
  561.  
  562. Find this resource:
  563.  
  564.  
  565. Waller, Richard. “Ecology, Migration and Expansion in East Africa.” African Affairs 84 (1985): 347–370.
  566.  
  567. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  568.  
  569. Waller argues that the African peoples of what became Kenya went through a constant process of colonization in the face of environmental uncertainty. He particularly points to emergence of “pure” pastoralist societies in the last 300 years as an example of the process.
  570.  
  571. Find this resource:
  572.  
  573.  
  574. Wendorf, Fred, Angela E. Close, and Romuald Schild. “Prehistoric Settlements in the Nubian Desert: A Region That Is Now Virtually Uninhabitable Contains a Record of Human Adaptation to Arid Environments That May Be 500,000 Years Long.” American Scientist 73.2 (1985): 132–141.
  575.  
  576. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  577.  
  578. Wendorf and his team provide the earliest evidence of domesticated cattle in Africa from Egypt near the modern border with Sudan. Dating to 8,000 years ago, they appear to have been domesticated in Africa, not imported.
  579.  
  580. Find this resource:
  581.  
  582.  
  583. Modern Pastoralism and Animal Husbandry
  584. Homewood 2008 provides an overview of modern pastoral societies in Africa while the essays in Hodgson 2000 look at social and gender relations in pastoralist societies. Århem 1985 examines an attempt to promote co-existence between pastoralist and wildlife conservation. Cassanelli 1982 covers the camel pastoralists of southern Somalia. Peters 1994 discusses the attempt to transform pastoralism in Botswana through the division of land into ranches. Kreike 2009 argues that pastoralism is often driven by market relations, not just survival strategies. Swart 2010 looks at the importance of horses in southern Africa. Mikhail 2014 takes an imaginative look at the role of animals in Egypt in the early modern era.
  585.  
  586. Århem, Kaj. Pastoral Man in the Garden of Eden: The Maasai of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology, 1985.
  587.  
  588. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  589.  
  590. This study of one of the longest running efforts to combine resource conservation with community development argues that the often fraught relationship between Maasai communities and conservation and tourism interests in Ngorongoro actually provides a model for such efforts elsewhere.
  591.  
  592. Find this resource:
  593.  
  594.  
  595. Cassanelli, Lee. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
  596.  
  597. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  598.  
  599. The author shows that adaptation to harsh environmental conditions provides the best explanation for the flexible and dispersed Somali social system.
  600.  
  601. Find this resource:
  602.  
  603.  
  604. Hodgson, Dorothy Louise, ed. Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture & the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey, 2000.
  605.  
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607.  
  608. This collection examines social relations among pastoralist peoples, focusing on the flexibility needed to survive in arid environments.
  609.  
  610. Find this resource:
  611.  
  612.  
  613. Homewood, Katherine. Ecology of African Pastoralist Societies. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008.
  614.  
  615. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  616.  
  617. Homewood shows how Africans over millennia have managed livestock as part of subsistence and exchange strategies in myriad and complex ways. She suggests that historically most systems emphasized flexibility and mobility but that shrinking access to land and water in the current era has led to dramatic change in pastoral societies.
  618.  
  619. Find this resource:
  620.  
  621.  
  622. Kreike, Emmanuel. “De-Globalisation and Deforestation in Colonial Africa: Closed Markets, the Cattle Complex, and Environmental Change in North-Central Namibia, 1890–1990.” Journal of Southern African Studies 35.1 (2009): 81–98.
  623.  
  624. DOI: 10.1080/03057070802685585Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  625.  
  626. Kreike shows that rather than having an atavistic attachment to cattle resistant to market forces or conservation mandates, the people of northern Namibia used cattle as a link to a global economy, and hence the system was subject to severe shocks from war, disease, and migration.
  627.  
  628. Find this resource:
  629.  
  630.  
  631. Mikhail, Alan. The Animal in Ottoman Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  632.  
  633. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  634.  
  635. Mikhail has produced a creative view of the changing role of animals as beast of burden, pet, food source, and charismatic symbol of the wild in Egypt during the Ottoman era.
  636.  
  637. Find this resource:
  638.  
  639.  
  640. Peters, Pauline E. Dividing the Commons: Politics, Policy, and Culture in Botswana. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994.
  641.  
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643.  
  644. Peters argues against seeing cattle keeping in Botswana as transitioning from a common grazing system to a system of private property based on access to water, and maintains that relations between people, cattle, and land have always been complex and negotiated. She shows that before, during, and after colonial rule local power relationships as well as relationships to external forces helped determine access to grazing land.
  645.  
  646. Find this resource:
  647.  
  648.  
  649. Swart, Sandra. Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010.
  650.  
  651. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  652.  
  653. The author argues for the central place of the horse in the development of settler society in South Africa. The horse allowed for mobility for settlers in their struggle for land with Africans and against imperial control.
  654.  
  655. Find this resource:
  656.  
  657.  
  658. Forests
  659. While forests still cover a significant portion of Africa, much debate has raged over the extent and rapidity of the loss of forest cover in the modern era. Wilks 1978 looks at the long history of agricultural expansion in the forest. McCann 1997 argues that concerns over deforestation often rely on misconceptions about the historic extent of forest cover. Colonial states often sought control over forest resources as shown in Tropp 2006. Kreike 2009 shows that tree cover often follows humans. Amanor 1994 suggests that commercialization of agriculture has led to forest degradation. Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008 examines the relationship between religious practice and conservation. Alexander, et al. 2000 demonstrates the centrality of the forest as a place apart in Zimbabwe while Richards 1996 looks at the role of the forest in Sierra Leone’s civil war.
  660.  
  661. Alexander, Jocelyn, JoAnn McGregor, and Terence Ranger. Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the “Dark Forests” of Matabeleland. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000.
  662.  
  663. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  664.  
  665. This work examines the history of conquest, resistance, and rebellion in colonial Rhodesia and independent Zimbabwe through the perspective of a particular landscape, the “disease ridden frontier” of what was called the Shangani Reserve.
  666.  
  667. Find this resource:
  668.  
  669.  
  670. Amanor, K. S. The New Frontier: Farmer Responses to Land Degradation: A West African Study. London: Zed Books, 1994.
  671.  
  672. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  673.  
  674. Amanor argues that land degradation and economic decline in a forest frontier region of Ghana are shaped by economic crisis in the late 20th century.
  675.  
  676. Find this resource:
  677.  
  678.  
  679. Kreike, Emmanuel. Deforestation and Reforestation in Namibia: The Global Consequences of Local Contradictions. Afrika-Studiecentrum Series. Boston: Brill Academic, 2009.
  680.  
  681. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  682.  
  683. Kreike suggests that environmental change is not unilinear. He shows that land use, especially tree cover, has varied with economic and social conditions in northern Namibia and southern Angola.
  684.  
  685. Find this resource:
  686.  
  687.  
  688. McCann, James C. “The Plow and the Forest: Narratives of Deforestation in Ethiopia, 1840–1992.” Environmental History 2.2 (1997): 138–159.
  689.  
  690. DOI: 10.2307/3985505Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  691.  
  692. McCann challenges “degradation narratives” that claim the Ethiopian highlands suffered rapid deforestation during the 20th century. He shows that human management of landscapes had shaped the relationship between forest, field, and settlement for centuries.
  693.  
  694. Find this resource:
  695.  
  696.  
  697. Richards, Paul. Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996.
  698.  
  699. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  700.  
  701. Richards’s study of the civil war in Sierra Leone focuses on the importance of the forest as refuge and symbol. He argues that there is no evidence for an environmental crisis as a cause for the conflict.
  702.  
  703. Find this resource:
  704.  
  705.  
  706. Sheridan, Michael J., and Celia Nyamweru, eds. African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics & Social Change. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008.
  707.  
  708. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  709.  
  710. The essays in this volume examine “sacred groves” from across Africa in the context of both changing African religious practice and ongoing conservation efforts. Most find the concept of sacred place dynamic.
  711.  
  712. Find this resource:
  713.  
  714.  
  715. Tropp, Jacob Abram. Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006.
  716.  
  717. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. Tropp presents a history of forest use in the Transkei region of South Africa that shows how the South African state decisively limited local access to and control of forest resources in the name of conservation. The work is as important for its exploration of the gendered nature of relations to resources as it is for its work on forests.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723.  
  724. Wilks, Ivor. “Land, Labour, Capital and the Forest Kingdom of Asante: A Model of Early Change.” In The Evolution of Social Systems. Edited by J. Friedman and M. J. Rowlands, 487–534. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978.
  725.  
  726. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  727.  
  728. From the Research Seminar in Archaeology and Related Subjects, 5th, London University, 1977. This work by an important historian of the West African kingdom of Asante argues that only when gold exports from the region began to grow could labor be imported to clear the forests and create denser settlement.
  729.  
  730. Find this resource:
  731.  
  732.  
  733. Forest Conservation
  734. From the beginning of the colonial era in Africa colonial states saw forests as both an exploitable resource and an object of conservation. As Fairhead and Leach 1996 and Fairhead and Leach 1998 show, they often overstated the threat to forests for local peoples and the extent of historic forest cover. Showers 2010 looks at the origins of conservation ideas amongst whites in South Africa. Sunseri 2009 and Neumann 1997 chart the development and contradictions of forestry policy in Tanzania. Hodge 2009 covers the debate in Ghana over cocoa farming, and Kull 2000 demonstrates that the outsider conservationists often misunderstand the causes of forest loss in Madagascar.
  735.  
  736. Fairhead, James, and Melissa Leach. Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  737.  
  738. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139164023Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  739.  
  740. This pathbreaking case study proved that African communities in the forest savanna borderlands actually fostered increased tree cover in their lands rather than being agents of deforestation.
  741.  
  742. Find this resource:
  743.  
  744.  
  745. Fairhead, James, and Melissa Leach. Reframing Deforestation: Global Analyses and Local Realities: Studies in West Africa. London: Routledge, 1998.
  746.  
  747. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  748.  
  749. This work examines examples from across West Africa to show that Western ideas about recent rapid deforestation are fundamentally false. The authors show that forest landscapes have long been shaped by human habitation.
  750.  
  751. Find this resource:
  752.  
  753.  
  754. Hodge, Joseph M. “Colonial Foresters Versus Agriculturalists: The Debate over Climate Change and Cocoa Production in the Gold Coast.” Agricultural History 83.2 (2009): 201–220.
  755.  
  756. DOI: 10.3098/ah.2009.83.2.201Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  757.  
  758. Hodge’s study shows how competing views of the effects on African landscapes by African farmers existed within colonial states. He finds that not all colonial officials saw African practices as unremittingly negative.
  759.  
  760. Find this resource:
  761.  
  762.  
  763. Kull, Christian A. “Deforestation, Erosion, and Fire: Degradation Myths in the Environmental History of Madagascar.” Environment and History 6.4 (2000): 423–450.
  764.  
  765. DOI: 10.3197/096734000129342361Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  766.  
  767. Kull argues that both environmental degradation and the role of local communities in causing degradation have been greatly exaggerated by developmentalist and conservationist literature.
  768.  
  769. Find this resource:
  770.  
  771.  
  772. Neumann, Roderick P. “Forest Rights, Privileges and Prohibitions: Contextualising State Forestry Policy in Tanganyika.” Environment and History 3.1 (1997): 45–68.
  773.  
  774. DOI: 10.3197/096734097779556024Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  775.  
  776. Neumann points out how international as well as local concerns about control of resources and conservation shaped British forestry policy in Tanzania. The general result was increasing restrictions on African access to forest resources.
  777.  
  778. Find this resource:
  779.  
  780.  
  781. Showers, Kate B. “Prehistory of Southern African Forestry: From Vegetable Garden to Tree Plantation.” Environment and History 16.3 (2010): 295–322.
  782.  
  783. DOI: 10.3197/096734010X519771Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  784.  
  785. Showers shows that colonial policies beginning in the 17th century encouraged tree planting, especially of imported species, and that the industrial growth of South Africa created a market for tree plantation products. By the late 20th century, the South African state regulated tree planting, which it now saw as a threat to water supplies in a relatively arid environment.
  786.  
  787. Find this resource:
  788.  
  789.  
  790. Sunseri, Thaddeus Raymond. Wielding the Ax: State Forestry and Social Conflict in Tanzania, 1820–2000. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009.
  791.  
  792. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  793.  
  794. Sunseri’s study of forests in coastal Tanzania examines the long-standing conflicts between local communities and state interests beginning with the Germans through the British colonial era and into the era of independence.
  795.  
  796. Find this resource:
  797.  
  798.  
  799. Mountains
  800. The high mountains of Africa have served as refuges both biologically and socially, as argued by Kingdon 1989. Some of the earliest agriculture developed on them (Bard, et al. 2000). Conte 2004, Ponte 2001, Spear 1997, and Tagseth 2008 show the diversity of mountain-based societies that have developed.
  801.  
  802. Bard, Kathryn A., Mauro Coltorti, Michael C. DiBlasi, Francesco Dramis, and Rodolfo Fattovich. “The Environmental History of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia) in the Middle and Late Holocene: A Preliminary Outline.” African Archaeological Review 17.2 (2000): 65–86.
  803.  
  804. DOI: 10.1023/A:1006630609041Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  805.  
  806. The article charts the rise and fall and rise again of human populations in the northern Ethiopian highlands through changes in vegetation. Population rose until the late first millennium of the current era when environmental degradation checked it. It rose again over the last 500 years.
  807.  
  808. Find this resource:
  809.  
  810.  
  811. Conte, Christopher A. Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania’s Usambara Mountains. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004.
  812.  
  813. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  814.  
  815. Conte’s study shows how competing claims to control and access resources in the Usambaras of northeastern Tanzania have resulted in a patchwork of environmental change in this unique area.
  816.  
  817. Find this resource:
  818.  
  819.  
  820. Kingdon, Jonathan. Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa’s Rare Animals and Plants. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
  821.  
  822. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  823.  
  824. This book is a unique view of evolution in Africa, illustrated by the polymath author as evolutionary biologist/artist born to a colonial family in East Africa. The work argues that highland regions in Africa served as island refuges for species across large swings in climate.
  825.  
  826. Find this resource:
  827.  
  828.  
  829. Ponte, Stefano. “Trapped in Decline? Reassessing Agrarian Change and Economic Diversification on the Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania.” Journal of Modern African Studies 39.1 (2001): 81–100.
  830.  
  831. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  832.  
  833. The article shows how farming practices in one densely populated region of Tanzania have changed in response to both economic changes and land scarcity.
  834.  
  835. Find this resource:
  836.  
  837.  
  838. Spear, Thomas. Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land and Agricultural Development in Arusha and Meru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
  839.  
  840. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  841.  
  842. This history of the settlement of Mt. Meru by the Meru and Arusha peoples focuses on their relationship to the land and the ways in which its use has changed.
  843.  
  844. Find this resource:
  845.  
  846.  
  847. Tagseth, Mattias. “The Expansion of Traditional Irrigation in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 41.3 (2008): 461–490.
  848.  
  849. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  850.  
  851. The author argues that the “hill furrow” irrigation system on Kilimanjaro has expanded, rather than declined, over the course of the 20th century as it spread out lower onto the slopes of the mountain.
  852.  
  853. Find this resource:
  854.  
  855.  
  856. Lakes, Rivers, and Seashores
  857. Aquatic environments have presented unique advantages and dangers for human societies as Akyeampong 2001 shows. McIntosh 1998 shows the importance of the Niger River in the development of societies in the Sahel of West Africa while Harms 1987 does so for the Congo River basin. Bender 2008 and Schumaker 2008 discuss debates over access to water in modern Africa. MacGregor 2009 and McKittrick 2008 examine cases of the loss of control over a riverine environment. The essays in Mikhail 2013 highlight the importance of water in North Africa.
  858.  
  859. Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku. Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-Social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times. Oxford: James Currey, 2001.
  860.  
  861. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  862.  
  863. This study of the Anlo-Ewe people of coastal Ghana shows how they created a lifeway in the lagoons and sandbanks of the seashore after the 17th century. Coastal erosion and social and political marginalization led the collapse of this system in the 20th century.
  864.  
  865. Find this resource:
  866.  
  867.  
  868. Bender, Matthew V. “‘For More and Better Water, Choose Pipes!’ Building Water and the Nation on Kilimanjaro, 1961–1985.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34.4 (2008): 841–859.
  869.  
  870. DOI: 10.1080/03057070802456789Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871.  
  872. Bender sees the provision of piped water to rapidly growing rural communities on Mt. Kilimanjaro as part of the project of building a nation. The project sought to replace an older version of water management based on clan control of irrigation furrows.
  873.  
  874. Find this resource:
  875.  
  876.  
  877. Harms, Robert. Games against Nature: An Eco-Cultural History of the Nunu of Equatorial Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  878.  
  879. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  880.  
  881. Harms’s work shows how prior decisions shaped later adaptations by the Nunu people to a diverse riverine landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the 19th and 20th centuries. He argues against environmental determinism in favor of a more contingent view of the interaction between society and landscape.
  882.  
  883. Find this resource:
  884.  
  885.  
  886. MacGregor, JoAnn. Crossing the Zambezi: The Politics of Landscape on a Central African Frontier. Oxford: James Currey, 2009.
  887.  
  888. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  889.  
  890. MacGregor’s study of the Zambezi along the length of the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe shows how this contested landscape became central to the communal identity of the people in the area. As they lost land to nature reserves, tourist sites (especially around Victoria Falls), and dam building, their well-being as well as their environment deteriorated.
  891.  
  892. Find this resource:
  893.  
  894.  
  895. McIntosh, Roderick J. The Peoples of the Middle Niger: The Island of Gold. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
  896.  
  897. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  898.  
  899. McIntosh attempts to reconstruct 5,000 years of history of the middle Niger using archaeology and ethnography. He places the development of urbanism and the rise of the long-distance gold trade across the Sahara squarely in the ecology of the Niger as it flows through the Sahel.
  900.  
  901. Find this resource:
  902.  
  903.  
  904. McKittrick, Meredith. “Landscapes of Power: Ownership and Identity on the Middle Kavango River, Namibia.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34.4 (2008): 785–802.
  905.  
  906. DOI: 10.1080/03057070802456755Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  907.  
  908. This article examines origin stories of riverine communities along the Kavango River. It shows that royal narratives claimed control of territory based in part on claims to earlier control over similar environments.
  909.  
  910. Find this resource:
  911.  
  912.  
  913. Mikhail, Alan, ed. Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  914.  
  915. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  916.  
  917. This volume contains many chapters on the environmental history of North Africa. The essays highlight connections to both the rest of Africa and to southwest Asia and emphasize the relationship between political authority and resources, especially water.
  918.  
  919. Find this resource:
  920.  
  921.  
  922. Schumaker, Lyn. “Slimes and Death-Dealing Dambos: Water, Industry and the Garden City on Zambia’s Copperbelt.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34.4 (2008): 823–840.
  923.  
  924. DOI: 10.1080/03057070802456771Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  925.  
  926. On the Zambian Copperbelt, mining firms realized they had to control water to limit flooding in the mines and suppress diseases like malaria. The construction of this control system sparked a protest movement among the people of the area.
  927.  
  928. Find this resource:
  929.  
  930.  
  931. Dams
  932. Dam building in Africa began during the colonial era and always displaced people in the process (McCann 1981). Adams 1992 discusses the failure of dam builders to often take into account the costs to local communities. Isaacman and Isaacman 2013 charts in detail the effects of a dam in Mozambique built to supply electricity to South Africa. Mitchell 2002 examines the unique case of Egypt including the Aswan Dam. Hoag and Öhman 2008 looks at the struggles over dam building in Tanzania.
  933.  
  934. Adams, W. M. Wasting the Rain: Rivers, People, and Planning in Africa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
  935.  
  936. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  937.  
  938. This study of dam building in Africa shows how dams have often ignored the costs to local communities and the environment. The author, however, suggests that dams are here to stay and need to be better planned to limit their harmful effects.
  939.  
  940. Find this resource:
  941.  
  942.  
  943. Hoag, Heather J., and May-Britt Öhman. “Turning Water into Power: Debates over the Development of Tanzania’s Rufiji River Basin, 1945–1985.” Technology and Culture 49.3 (2008): 624–651.
  944.  
  945. DOI: 10.1353/tech.0.0061Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  946.  
  947. This study finds that colonial engineers and scientists argued against the building of a dam on the Rufiji because of technical and environmental concerns. After independence, the government and international partners moved ahead with plans for a major dam despite these earlier findings.
  948.  
  949. Find this resource:
  950.  
  951.  
  952. Isaacman, Allen F., and Barbara S. Isaacman. Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2013.
  953.  
  954. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  955.  
  956. This study of a large dam built in Mozambique in the last days of colonial rule not only destroyed a thriving riparian environment, but also brought little benefit to Mozambique as a whole. The electricity produced by the dam has gone mostly to fuel industrialization in South Africa.
  957.  
  958. Find this resource:
  959.  
  960.  
  961. McCann, James. “Ethiopia, Britain, and Negotiations for the Lake Tana Dam, 1922–1935.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 14.4 (1981): 667–699.
  962.  
  963. DOI: 10.2307/218231Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  964.  
  965. The article covers the diplomatic machinations around a proposed dam on the Nile at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian state’s attempt to control the project in the face of European and American interests doomed it until the Depression made it impossible. The Italian invasion and war put an end to the idea.
  966.  
  967. Find this resource:
  968.  
  969.  
  970. Mitchell, Timothy. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
  971.  
  972. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  973.  
  974. Mitchell links the rise of “techno-politics” to the continuing Egyptian project to build a civilization in its unique environment dominated by the Nile. His focus includes agriculture, dams, and public health.
  975.  
  976. Find this resource:
  977.  
  978.  
  979. Fishing and Fisheries
  980. Fishing provided an important means of subsistence for many African societies. Gordon 2006 looks at changes over the 20th century to one such set of communities. Nakayama 2008 examines the effect of commercialization on Lake Malawi. Goldschmidt 1996 discusses the effect of the introduction of the Nile perch on Lake Victoria.
  981.  
  982. Goldschmidt, Tijs. Darwin’s Dreampond: Drama in Lake Victoria. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
  983.  
  984. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  985.  
  986. This study of cichlids of Lake Victoria also documents the destruction of hundreds of species in the wake of the introduction of the Nile perch as a commercial fishery starting in the 1950s.
  987.  
  988. Find this resource:
  989.  
  990.  
  991. Gordon, David M. Nachituti’s Gift: Economy, Society, and Environment in Central Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
  992.  
  993. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  994.  
  995. This history of the people of the Luapula valley in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia focuses on control of fishing and the changes brought to it by colonial rule. It also shows the divergent yet interconnected path divisions of the valley have taken in their respective colonies and countries.
  996.  
  997. Find this resource:
  998.  
  999.  
  1000. Nakayama, Setsuko. “City Lights Emblaze Village Fishing Grounds: The Re-Imaginings of Waterscape by Lake Malawi Fishers.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34.4 (2008): 803–821.
  1001.  
  1002. DOI: 10.1080/03057070802456763Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1003.  
  1004. This article shows that fishing communities on the western shores of Lake Malawi transformed their practices over the 20th century, leading to concerns about degradation and external intervention.
  1005.  
  1006. Find this resource:
  1007.  
  1008.  
  1009. Deserts
  1010. Africa is home to the largest, the Sahara, and driest, the Kalahari, deserts in the world. Brooks 1993 and Webb 1995 give two accounts of the relationship between desert, trade, and society in West Africa. Raynaut, et al. 1997 provides a comprehensive view of Sahelian societies. Nana-Sinkam 1995 makes the case for an expanding desert due to climate change and human mis-use of land. Mortimore 1989 and Mortimore 1998 emphasizes the variability of the Sahelian climate as the cause of desert expansion and contraction, not human land use. Rain 1999 looks at modern adaptations to the variable environment. Wilmsen 1989 argues that impoverishment in the 19th and 20th centuries created the lifeway of the San-speaking peoples of the Kalahari.
  1011.  
  1012. Brooks, George E. Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993.
  1013.  
  1014. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1015.  
  1016. Brooks uses linguistic, climate, and oral evidence to conclude that Mande speakers moved south across West Africa up to 1500 because of drying conditions in the Sahel. He suggests the creation of states such as ancient Mali occurred in part because drier conditions allowed horse cavalry to conquer large numbers of agricultural communities.
  1017.  
  1018. Find this resource:
  1019.  
  1020.  
  1021. Mortimore, Michael. Adapting to Drought: Farmers, Famines and Desertification in West Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  1022.  
  1023. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511720772Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1024.  
  1025. This work examines northern Nigeria during the Sahelian drought of the 1970s and argues that climate, rainfall below long-term averages, and not human land use has caused desertification.
  1026.  
  1027. Find this resource:
  1028.  
  1029.  
  1030. Mortimore, Michael. Roots in the African Dust: Sustaining the Sub-Saharan Drylands. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  1031.  
  1032. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511560064Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1033.  
  1034. Mortimore attacks the ideas of natural equilibrium and carrying capacity as they apply to African drylands. He argues that climate variability has determined the ways in which Africans have sought to live in those lands, and that conservation only succeeds when it is linked to improving rural livelihoods.
  1035.  
  1036. Find this resource:
  1037.  
  1038.  
  1039. Nana-Sinkam, S. C. Land and Environmental Degradation and Desertification in Africa. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: Food and Agricultural Organization, 1995.
  1040.  
  1041. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1042.  
  1043. This study argues that Africa faces a severe environmental crisis caused by over exploitation and growing population.
  1044.  
  1045. Find this resource:
  1046.  
  1047.  
  1048. Rain, David. Eaters of the Dry Season: Circular Labor Migration in the West African Sahel. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999.
  1049.  
  1050. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1051.  
  1052. Rain examines the networks of labor migration in the West African Sahel as a product of strategies by rural people to cope with an uncertain and changing environment.
  1053.  
  1054. Find this resource:
  1055.  
  1056.  
  1057. Raynaut, Claude, Emmanuel Grégoire, Pierre Janin, Jean Koechlin, Philippe Lavigne Delville, and Phil Bradley. Societies and Nature in the Sahel. Translated by Dominique Simon and Hilary Kaziol. London: Routledge, 1997.
  1058.  
  1059. DOI: 10.4324/9780203438541Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1060.  
  1061. This complex work develops a typology of environmental history across the Sahelian region that focuses not just on local adaptations to the environment but also on the changing nature of economic and political structures in the region.
  1062.  
  1063. Find this resource:
  1064.  
  1065.  
  1066. Webb, James L. A., Jr. Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change along the Western Sahel, 1600–1850. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
  1067.  
  1068. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1069.  
  1070. Webb finds that a trend toward aridity in the West African Sahel forced the desert border south after the 17th century. This environmental change drove changes in production, trade, and even ethnic identity in the region, accompanied by increased social violence.
  1071.  
  1072. Find this resource:
  1073.  
  1074.  
  1075. Wilmsen, E. Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
  1076.  
  1077. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1078.  
  1079. Wilmsen’s exploration of the San-speaking peoples of southwestern Africa attacks stereotypes of them as Bushmen living close to nature by arguing that current communities in the region resulted from policies of differentiation and impoverishment over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.
  1080.  
  1081. Find this resource:
  1082.  
  1083.  
  1084. Environment and Health
  1085. The relationship between the environment and human health became one of the first topics of African environmental history in Curtin 1968, where the author explained the Atlantic slave trade in terms of disease resistance. Doyle 2006 and Turshen 1984 examine the relationship between environment, health, and colonial conquest. The essays in Hartwig and Patterson 1978 represent an early attempt to look at the history of health. Feierman 1990 and Feierman and Janzen 1992 explore the social basis of health and healing. Please see also the Oxford Bibliographies article Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa.
  1086.  
  1087. Curtin, Philip D. “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade.” Political Science Quarterly 83.2 (1968): 190–216.
  1088.  
  1089. DOI: 10.2307/2147089Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1090.  
  1091. This pathbreaking study revolutionized the study of the Atlantic slave trade and is one of earliest examples of the close relationship between environmental and African history.
  1092.  
  1093. Find this resource:
  1094.  
  1095.  
  1096. Doyle, Shane. Crisis and Decline in Bunyoro: Population and Environment in Western Uganda 1860–1955. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006.
  1097.  
  1098. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1099.  
  1100. Doyle argues that the colonial conquest of Bunyoro created the conditions in loss of land and livestock that led to population decline in the land left to the old kingdom. Colonialism made the people more vulnerable to famine and poverty.
  1101.  
  1102. Find this resource:
  1103.  
  1104.  
  1105. Feierman, Steven. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
  1106.  
  1107. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1108.  
  1109. Feierman situates Shambala understandings of power and social health within their conceptions of their mountain homeland. Discourses of power are those of healing and harming the land.
  1110.  
  1111. Find this resource:
  1112.  
  1113.  
  1114. Feierman, Steven, and John M. Janzen, eds. The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  1115.  
  1116. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1117.  
  1118. This important collection of essays examines systems of health and healing from across Africa and across the late precolonial and colonial eras.
  1119.  
  1120. Find this resource:
  1121.  
  1122.  
  1123. Hartwig, Gerald W., and K. David Patterson, eds. Disease in African History: An Introductory Survey and Case Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978.
  1124.  
  1125. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1126.  
  1127. This early collection of studies of disease in African history contains many that focus on the environmental relationship between disease and human populations.
  1128.  
  1129. Find this resource:
  1130.  
  1131.  
  1132. Turshen, Meredith. The Political Ecology of Disease in Tanzania. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984.
  1133.  
  1134. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1135.  
  1136. Turshen’s controversial book argues that health declined for Africans under colonial rule as they lost control over their environments. She suggests that both mortality and fertility were lower before colonial conquest, in contrast to the findings of classical demographic transition theory.
  1137.  
  1138. Find this resource:
  1139.  
  1140.  
  1141. Malaria
  1142. Malaria, a disease caused by parasites carried by mosquitoes, originated in Africa alongside humanity. Webb 2005 argues that malaria helped shape human evolution inside and outside Africa, while Schroeder, et al. 1991 shows how genetic analysis of the sickle cell trait can identify the geographic origins of enslaved Africans. Packard 2007 and McGregor and Ranger 2000 look at the long struggle to control the disease.
  1143.  
  1144. McGregor, JoAnn, and Terence Ranger. “Displacement and Disease: Epidemics and Ideas about Malaria in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, 1945–1996.” Past and Present 167 (2000): 203–237.
  1145.  
  1146. DOI: 10.1093/past/167.1.203Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1147.  
  1148. This article examines the failure of the World Health Organization’s eradicate malaria campaign using DDT in settler-ruled Rhodesia. Despite the apparent lack of success, the newly independent government of Zimbabwe continued the same policies after independence.
  1149.  
  1150. Find this resource:
  1151.  
  1152.  
  1153. Packard, Randall M. The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
  1154.  
  1155. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1156.  
  1157. Packard’s work travels from malaria’s origin in Central Africa across the globe as the parasite moved with humans and mosquitoes and back to Africa in the late 20th century with a renewed effort to control the disease. He emphasizes the close relationship between microbe, vector, environment, and host.
  1158.  
  1159. Find this resource:
  1160.  
  1161.  
  1162. Schroeder, Walter A., Edwin S. Munger, and Darleen R. Powars. “Sickle Cell Anaemia, Genetic Variations and the Slave Trade to the United States.” Journal of African History 31.2 (1991): 163–180.
  1163.  
  1164. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700024981Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1165.  
  1166. This early genomic study shows that the origins of African American populations can be gauged in part by the prevalence of three inheritable types of the sickle cell trait that originated in different parts of Africa.
  1167.  
  1168. Find this resource:
  1169.  
  1170.  
  1171. Webb, James L. A. “Malaria and the Peopling of Early Tropical Africa.” Journal of World History 16.3 (2005): 269–291.
  1172.  
  1173. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1174.  
  1175. Webb shows how the interplay of disease-causing micro-organisms, vector, and environment shaped the population of Africa.
  1176.  
  1177. Find this resource:
  1178.  
  1179.  
  1180. HIV/AIDS
  1181. The emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s in Africa and the eventual identification of Africa as the origin of the virus led to a great deal of research on its relationship to African environments. Iliffe 2006 provides the best overview. Doyle 2013 tries to explain why it spread so rapidly in one region in East Africa. Giles-Vernick, et al. 2013 and Pépin 2011 present contrasting views of the origins of both the virus and the pandemic.
  1182.  
  1183. Doyle, Shane. Before HIV: Sexuality, Fertility and Mortality in East Africa, 1900–1980. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  1184.  
  1185. DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197265338.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1186.  
  1187. Doyle’s study of three societies located in the border lands between Uganda and Tanzania argues that population began to increase at different times among them as childhood mortality and sterility declined. While emphasizing the diversity of fertility regimes and social relations between the communities, he also suggests that patterns of social relationships that emerged in the middle decades of the 20th century facilitated the broader region becoming the first where HIV became a rural epidemic.
  1188.  
  1189. Find this resource:
  1190.  
  1191.  
  1192. Giles-Vernick, Tamara, Ch. Didier Gondola, Guillaume Lachenal, and William H. Schneider. “Social History, Biology, and the Emergence of HIV in Colonial Africa.” Journal of African History 54.1 (2013): 11–30.
  1193.  
  1194. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853713000029Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1195.  
  1196. The authors examine the literature on the movement of the HIV-1M virus from chimpanzees to humans in Central Africa in the early 20th century. They argue that rather than seeking a single transmission using stereotyped ideas about changes to African societies under colonial rule, research should focus on social relations and medical practices as creating conditions for the origins of the epidemic.
  1197.  
  1198. Find this resource:
  1199.  
  1200.  
  1201. Iliffe, John. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006.
  1202.  
  1203. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1204.  
  1205. Iliffe’s careful history of the rise of the HIV pandemic focuses on the spread of the disease in the 1970s and 1980s.
  1206.  
  1207. Find this resource:
  1208.  
  1209.  
  1210. Pépin, Jacques. The Origins of AIDS. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
  1211.  
  1212. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139005234Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1213.  
  1214. Pépin seeks the origin of the transmission of HIV-1M virus in hunting in Central Africa. He then argues that public health campaigns in colonial urban areas in the regions helped spread the virus.
  1215.  
  1216. Find this resource:
  1217.  
  1218.  
  1219. Other Diseases
  1220. Scholars have examined the history of diseases both new and ancient in Africa in an environmental context. Dawson 1979 looks at smallpox in the transition to colonialism. Lyons 1992 examines sleeping sickness. Echenberg 2011 charts the history of cholera in Africa, and Packard 1989 explores the relationship between tuberculosis and the mining economy in South Africa. Ohadike 1981 looks at the effects of the World War I–era influenza epidemic on agriculture in Nigeria.
  1221.  
  1222. Dawson, Marc H. “Smallpox in Kenya, 1880–1920.” Social Science and Medicine: Part B Medical Anthropology 13.4 (1979): 245–250.
  1223.  
  1224. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1225.  
  1226. Dawson shows that an increase in the incidence of smallpox in the last half of the 19th century occurred because of the disruption of local communities in an era of conquest and famine. He argues that the close association of smallpox and famine occurred because people became more mobile in the face of food shortages.
  1227.  
  1228. Find this resource:
  1229.  
  1230.  
  1231. Echenberg, Myron J. Africa in the Time of Cholera: A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
  1232.  
  1233. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511976599Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1234.  
  1235. Echenberg charts the impact on African societies of cholera since 1817. He notes the relationship of the disease to the movement of people both as migrants (including the slave trade) and as pilgrims.
  1236.  
  1237. Find this resource:
  1238.  
  1239.  
  1240. Lyons, Maryinez. The Colonial Disease: A Social History of Sleeping Sickness in Northern Zaire, 1900–1940. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  1241.  
  1242. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583704Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1243.  
  1244. Lyons shows how riverine sleeping sickness in the Belgian Congo expanded its range during the colonial era as it adapted to new plants and populations. She notes the difference between this disease and savannah sleeping sickness, the latter of which struck domesticated animals as well as humans.
  1245.  
  1246. Find this resource:
  1247.  
  1248.  
  1249. Ohadike, D. C. “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19 and the Spread of Cassava Cultivation on the Lower Niger: A Study in Historical Linkages.” Journal of African History 22.3 (1981): 379–391.
  1250.  
  1251. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700019587Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1252.  
  1253. Ohadike links the replacement of yams with cassava in the agriculture of the lower Niger with subsistence crises caused by colonial conquest and especially the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919.
  1254.  
  1255. Find this resource:
  1256.  
  1257.  
  1258. Packard, Randall M. White Plague, Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
  1259.  
  1260. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1261.  
  1262. Packard’s influential work shows how tuberculosis spread in South Africa with the rise of a mining economy and rapidly infected not only urban and industrial work sites but also rural areas. He then charts the gradual decline of the disease in the mid-20th century and its reemergence in the latter part of the century.
  1263.  
  1264. Find this resource:
  1265.  
  1266.  
  1267. Animal Diseases
  1268. The presence of disease in specific environments affects animals as well as humans and has shaped how African societies have kept domesticated animals. Gifford-Gonzalez 2000 argues that humans had to develop the means to cope with new disease environments in order to even keep animals in much of Africa. Ford 1971, Giblin 1990, Hoppe 2003, and Waller 1990 all discuss the effects of a fly-carried disease in eastern Africa.
  1269.  
  1270. Ford, John. The Role of the Trypanosomiases in African Ecology: A Study of the Tsetse Fly Problem. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.
  1271.  
  1272. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1273.  
  1274. This influential study by a scientist with long experience in East Africa before and after independence laid the foundation for the understanding of the relationship between settlement and trypanosomiasis. He showed that sleeping sickness and cattle disease spread when population fell.
  1275.  
  1276. Find this resource:
  1277.  
  1278.  
  1279. Giblin, James L. “Trypanosomiasis Control in African History: An Evaded Issue?” Journal of African History 31.1 (1990): 59–80.
  1280.  
  1281. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700024786Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1282.  
  1283. Giblin shows how populations in northeastern Tanzania managed contact with disease-carrying tsetse flies that allowed them and their livestock to develop immunity. During the colonial era, they lost this ability and as a result disease spread.
  1284.  
  1285. Find this resource:
  1286.  
  1287.  
  1288. Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane. “Animal Disease Challenges to the Emergence of Pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa.” African Archaeological Review 17.3 (2000): 95–139.
  1289.  
  1290. DOI: 10.1023/A:1006601020217Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1291.  
  1292. This article argues that cattle keeping did not spread south of what is now northern Kenya for 1,000 years because of the presence of diseases often fatal to cattle in the wildlife populations of eastern and southern Africa.
  1293.  
  1294. Find this resource:
  1295.  
  1296.  
  1297. Hoppe, Kirk Arden. Lords of the Fly: Sleeping Sickness Control in British East Africa, 1900–1960. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
  1298.  
  1299. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1300.  
  1301. Hoppe examines the effort to control sleeping sickness in western Tanganyika and Uganda through forced resettlement and environmental alteration. He finds the effort more an expression of colonial power than an effective public health campaign.
  1302.  
  1303. Find this resource:
  1304.  
  1305.  
  1306. Waller, Richard. “Tsetse Fly in Western Narok, Kenya.” Journal of African History 31.1 (1990): 81–102.
  1307.  
  1308. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700024798Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1309.  
  1310. Waller shows how the rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s allowed tsetse-bearing bush to expand into former Maasai grazing lands in Kenya. Only later during the colonial era did colonial government bush clearing and population growth allow herders to reoccupy parts of their former lands.
  1311.  
  1312. Find this resource:
  1313.  
  1314.  
  1315. Demography
  1316. Reconstructing Africa’s population history and its resultant influence on environment has occupied both scholarly and popular imagination. Kuczynski 1949 presents evidence that African populations had not been increasing in the early decades of the 20th century, and Manning 1990 pushes that view back to the 19th century. Caldwell and Caldwell 1987 lays out the case for a neo-Malthusian view of Africa’s population history while Boserup 1965 presents one of the most influential critiques of such views. The essays in Cordell and Gregory 1994 and Fetter 1990 debate the sources of population data and demographic theory. Iliffe 1987 presents a history of poverty closely tied to a neo-Malthusian view of population. The essays in Ittmann, et al. 2010 update the critiques of neo-Malthusian and demographic transition theories. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies article on Population and Demography
  1317.  
  1318. Boserup, Ester. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. New York: Aldine, 1965.
  1319.  
  1320. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1321.  
  1322. Boserup’s work argued that growing population led to increased agricultural productivity. Using prominently African examples, her work has become foundational in critiques of Malthusian population theory applied to modern Africa.
  1323.  
  1324. Find this resource:
  1325.  
  1326.  
  1327. Caldwell, John C., and Pat Caldwell. “The Cultural Context of High Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Population and Development Review 13.3 (1987): 409–437.
  1328.  
  1329. DOI: 10.2307/1973133Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1330.  
  1331. Well known demographers John Caldwell and Pat Caldwell lay out the application of their neo-Malthusian approach to African population change. They argue that cultural constraints will delay the demographic transition to low mortality/low fertility regimes in Africa.
  1332.  
  1333. Find this resource:
  1334.  
  1335.  
  1336. Cordell, Dennis D., and Joel W. Gregory, eds. African Population and Capitalism: Historical Perspectives. 2d ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
  1337.  
  1338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1339.  
  1340. The essays in this collection generally take an anti-Malthusian line on African population history. Taken collectively they present a convincing picture of the demographic diversity of Africa.
  1341.  
  1342. Find this resource:
  1343.  
  1344.  
  1345. Fetter, Bruce, ed. Demography from Scanty Evidence: Central Africa in the Colonial Era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Riemer, 1990.
  1346.  
  1347. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1348.  
  1349. This collection focuses on Zambia and other parts of Central Africa. The essays highlight the unreliability of demographic evidence from the region while showing some methods for the reconstruction of population history.
  1350.  
  1351. Find this resource:
  1352.  
  1353.  
  1354. Iliffe, John. The African Poor: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  1355.  
  1356. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511584121Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1357.  
  1358. Iliffe’s broad historical survey of poverty in Africa takes a neo-Malthusian view. He argues that during the 20th century poverty in Africa shifted from conjectural, caused by events such as famines, to structural as the communities of the continent became enmeshed in colonialism.
  1359.  
  1360. Find this resource:
  1361.  
  1362.  
  1363. Ittmann, Karl, Dennis Cordell, and Gregory H. Maddox, eds. The Demographics of Empire: The Colonial Order and the Creation of Knowledge. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010.
  1364.  
  1365. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1366.  
  1367. The essays in this collection focus on the diversity of African demographic systems. The volume includes reviews of demographic theory as applied to Africa as well as case studies of the determinants of population regimes.
  1368.  
  1369. Find this resource:
  1370.  
  1371.  
  1372. Kuczynski, R. R. Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire. Vol. I: West Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1949.
  1373.  
  1374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1375.  
  1376. A pathbreaking work by a demographer working for the British Imperial government, the works argue that African populations had fallen in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Volume II covers the South African High Commission Territories, East Africa, Mauritius, and the Seycehelles.
  1377.  
  1378. Find this resource:
  1379.  
  1380.  
  1381. Manning, Patrick. Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental and African Slave Trades. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  1382.  
  1383. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1384.  
  1385. Manning argues that the slave trades that drew Africans out of the continent had profound effects on both the size and location of African population. He shows that the Atlantic slave trade acted as a constraint on the growth of African populations.
  1386.  
  1387. Find this resource:
  1388.  
  1389.  
  1390. Soil Conservation and Development
  1391. In the early 20th century colonial officials, concerned with the production of cash crops and the potential for food shortages, sought the explanation for the low productivity of African agriculture in what they saw as the “primitive” and “destructive” practices of African farmers. They sought solutions in scientific agriculture imported from Europe or America. This degradationist view of African agriculture faulted it for deforestation, causing soil erosion, and low productivity. Many efforts to promote soil conservation ended in failure as Africans resisted efforts that took their land and gave them little return for extra effort. Even in the colonial era, a number of close observers began to argue that African agricultural practices developed in ways that maximized long-term survival in the face of difficult environmental conditions. This debate has continued to animate both development programs and scholarship about African agriculture.
  1392.  
  1393. Colonial Soil Conservation
  1394. Anderson 1984 and Beinart 2003 discuss the origins of concerns about soil conservation among British and South African officials in the 1930s. Anderson and Grove 1987 presents case studies of colonial conservation efforts from across colonial Africa. MacKenzie 1998, Östberg 1986, Young and Fosbrooke 1960, and Showers 2005 all provide detailed accounts of these types of programs and their limitations.
  1395.  
  1396. Anderson, David M. “Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography, and Drought: The Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa during the 1930s.” African Affairs 83 (1984): 321–343.
  1397.  
  1398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1399.  
  1400. The mania for soil conservation in East Africa developed in the 1930s both as a result of local recognition of deteriorating conditions in some cases and as a result of a growing scientific consensus on the issue. While degradation was a problem in some areas, colonial agents almost universally failed to win acceptance for their proposed solutions and relied on compulsion as they sought to implement soil conservation measures in the 1940s.
  1401.  
  1402. Find this resource:
  1403.  
  1404.  
  1405. Anderson, David M. Eroding the Commons: The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya, 1890s–1962. Oxford: James Currey, 2002.
  1406.  
  1407. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1408.  
  1409. Anderson shows how the response to famine in the 1930s in Baringo by the British colonial government became a model for rural interventions throughout Africa. He carries the story forward to increasing resistance to colonial development policies in the run up to independence.
  1410.  
  1411. Find this resource:
  1412.  
  1413.  
  1414. Anderson, David, and R. Grove, eds. Conservation in Africa: Peoples, Policies and Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  1415.  
  1416. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1417.  
  1418. These essays cover the rise of soil conservation efforts during the colonial era and note that in most cases they failed miserably, often sparking resistance and achieving little in return.
  1419.  
  1420. Find this resource:
  1421.  
  1422.  
  1423. Beinart, William. The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment, 1770–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  1424.  
  1425. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1426.  
  1427. Beinart argues that in southern Africa, much of the concern about soil conservation was shaped by the desire to support settler agriculture as well as the emerging international consensus on the importance of efforts to protect natural resources.
  1428.  
  1429. Find this resource:
  1430.  
  1431.  
  1432. MacKenzie, Fiona. Land, Ecology and Resistance in Kenya, 1880–1952. Edinburgh: International African Institute, 1998.
  1433.  
  1434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1435.  
  1436. MacKenzie shows how the colonial effort to enforce soil conservation in Murang’a became a cover for colonial state and settler attempts to control African land and labor. Within African communities, these struggles played out as gender and class conflicts.
  1437.  
  1438. Find this resource:
  1439.  
  1440.  
  1441. Östberg, Whilhelm. The Kondoa Transformation: Coming to Grips with Soil Erosion in Central Tanzania. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Research Report. Uppsala, Sweden: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1986.
  1442.  
  1443. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1444.  
  1445. The author shows that a soil conservation campaign begun under colonial rule and continued after independence in Tanzania has proved somewhat effective despite the lack of local support for the measures.
  1446.  
  1447. Find this resource:
  1448.  
  1449.  
  1450. Showers, Kate B. Imperial Gullies: Soil Erosion and Conservation in Lesotho. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005.
  1451.  
  1452. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1453.  
  1454. An environmental history written by a soil scientist who worked for thirty years in Lesotho. Showers argues that colonial anti-erosion policies worsened rather than relieved the situation.
  1455.  
  1456. Find this resource:
  1457.  
  1458.  
  1459. Young, Roland, and Henry Fosbrooke. Smoke in the Hills: Political Tension in the Morogoro District of Tanganyika. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1960.
  1460.  
  1461. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1462.  
  1463. This work by a colonial administrator and a colonial anthropologist shows how a soil conservation program in a mountain region of Tanzania sparked resistance because it increased labor demands and brought little in the way of returns to local farmers.
  1464.  
  1465. Find this resource:
  1466.  
  1467.  
  1468. Development and Environment
  1469. Hodge 2007 shows how imperial institutions shaped colonial policy in Africa toward rural development even after the end of colonial rule, while Showers 2005 charts the hangover of colonial ideas in scientific knowledge. Blaikie 1986 gives an overview of the relationship between degradation and economic change. Kreike 2013 argues for a longer view of investment in environmental infrastructure. Van Beusekom 2002 examines a long-running program in French West Africa while Jacobs 2003 charts struggles over development in one South African scene. Tiffen, et al. 1993 and Östberg 1995 argue that African communities have often developed their own ways of improving their lands.
  1470.  
  1471. Blaikie, Piers. The Political Economy of Soil Erosion. London: Longman, 1986.
  1472.  
  1473. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1474.  
  1475. Blaikie, using mostly African examples, argues that capitalist exploitation causes overuse of land and soil degradation. Rather than technical solutions, he finds that only political change will alleviate the problem.
  1476.  
  1477. Find this resource:
  1478.  
  1479.  
  1480. Hodge, Joseph Morgan. Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007.
  1481.  
  1482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1483.  
  1484. Hodge’s study shows how the rise of scientific efforts at managing resources and promoting development in the late British empire focused on sustaining rural communities in the face of economic and environmental change. He shows the linkages in policy in Africa with other parts of the empire, and how in many ways such a focus has continued through international organizations after independence.
  1485.  
  1486. Find this resource:
  1487.  
  1488.  
  1489. Jacobs, Nancy J. Environment, Power, and Injustice: A South African History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  1490.  
  1491. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511511981Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1492.  
  1493. Jacobs’s study shows how the creation of modern South Africa destroyed the extensive agro-pastoral system of the Tswana people of northwest South Africa. She shows how intensification failed as African communities lost access to land and water in the arid region.
  1494.  
  1495. Find this resource:
  1496.  
  1497.  
  1498. Kreike, Emmanuel. Environmental Infrastructure in African History: Examining the Myth of Natural Resource Management in Namibia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  1499.  
  1500. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139026123Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1501.  
  1502. Kreike emphasizes the dynamic relations between nature and culture, arguing that this interaction creates a constantly changing environmental infrastructure.
  1503.  
  1504. Find this resource:
  1505.  
  1506.  
  1507. Östberg, Wilhelm. Land Is Coming Up: The Burunge of Central Tanzania and Their Environments. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 1995.
  1508.  
  1509. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1510.  
  1511. This work presents a detailed study of changing land use in central Tanzania. The author argues that poverty drives rural households to engage in short-term strategies toward conservation.
  1512.  
  1513. Find this resource:
  1514.  
  1515.  
  1516. Showers, Kate B. “Mapping African Soils.” Environmental History 10.2 (2005): 314–320.
  1517.  
  1518. DOI: 10.1093/envhis/10.2.314Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1519.  
  1520. In this brief exploration of soil maps of Africa, Showers shows how colonial perceptions rooted in preconceived notions of African societies as wasteful of resources continue to shape modern supposedly scientific data.
  1521.  
  1522. Find this resource:
  1523.  
  1524.  
  1525. Tiffen, Mary, Michael Mortimore, and Francis Gichuki. More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya. Chichester, UK: J. Wiley, 1993.
  1526.  
  1527. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1528.  
  1529. The authors use the case of Machakos, Kenya, over sixty years to challenge “received wisdom” about population growth, land use, and degradation. They argue that the increase in density has led farmers to practice soil conservation and increase tree cover in the region.
  1530.  
  1531. Find this resource:
  1532.  
  1533.  
  1534. van Beusekom, Monica M. Negotiating Development: African Farmers and Colonial Experts at the Office Du Niger, 1920–1960. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
  1535.  
  1536. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1537.  
  1538. This study shows how a colonial effort at remaking an environment came to be shaped not just by a European technocratic vision but also by African communities’ understanding of their place in the landscape.
  1539.  
  1540. Find this resource:
  1541.  
  1542.  
  1543. Minerals and Mining
  1544. Africans exploited mineral deposits of copper, gold, and iron for thousands of years. Please see the Oxford Bibliographies article Iron Working and the Iron Age in Africa. Surprisingly, little environmental history work has been done on mining in modern Africa, especially the diamond, gold, and copper mines of southern Africa where scholarly work had focused on labor, social, and political history. Schmidt 1997 explores the history of iron working in East Africa and Herbert 1984 the long history of copper working in Africa. Lovejoy 1986 shows the importance of salt and salt mining in West Africa. Bridge and Fredriksen 2012 and Edgecombe 1998 provide histories of particular mining landscapes in the 20th century. Watts 2004 examines the influence of the oil industry in Nigeria and Hecht 2012 the rise of uranium mining in Africa.
  1545.  
  1546. Bridge, Gavin, and Tomas Fredriksen. “‘Order out of Chaos’: Resources, Hazards and the Production of a Tin-Mining Economy in Northern Nigeria in the Early Twentieth Century.” Environment and History 18.3 (2012): 367–394.
  1547.  
  1548. DOI: 10.3197/096734012X13400389809337Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1549.  
  1550. Tin mines in northern Nigeria operated from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1980s. The mines, which attracted investment from fifty foreign companies and employed at their peak 18,000 workers, remade physical and social landscapes.
  1551.  
  1552. Find this resource:
  1553.  
  1554.  
  1555. Edgecombe, Ruth. The Constancy of Change: A History of Hlobane Colliery, 1898–1998. Pretoria, South Africa: ISCOR, 1998.
  1556.  
  1557. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1558.  
  1559. One of the few attempts to write an environmental history of mining in Africa, the book looks at the rise of coal mining in South Africa.
  1560.  
  1561. Find this resource:
  1562.  
  1563.  
  1564. Hecht, Gabrielle. Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
  1565.  
  1566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1567.  
  1568. Hecht reviews the rise of a nuclear industry across Africa, focusing on the linkages created by international mining companies. She shows how miners were often exposed to unsafe contamination.
  1569.  
  1570. Find this resource:
  1571.  
  1572.  
  1573. Herbert, Eugenia W. Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
  1574.  
  1575. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1576.  
  1577. This book surveys the importance of copper in Africa since precolonial times. The author shows how it became common across the continent as a currency and medium for art.
  1578.  
  1579. Find this resource:
  1580.  
  1581.  
  1582. Lovejoy, Paul E. Salt of the Desert Sun: A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  1583.  
  1584. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1585.  
  1586. Salt was one of the most traded commodities in Western Africa. Lovejoy details the major producing sites from the shores to the salt mines of the Sahara, and the way that environmental constraints encouraged trade and limited productivity.
  1587.  
  1588. Find this resource:
  1589.  
  1590.  
  1591. Schmidt, Peter R. Iron Technology in East Africa: Symbolism, Science and Archaeology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
  1592.  
  1593. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1594.  
  1595. Schmidt has done important work in investigating the history of iron working in northwestern Tanzania. He argues both for the sophistication of the historic process and that the demand for iron, and wood to produce it, helped shape the region’s landscape.
  1596.  
  1597. Find this resource:
  1598.  
  1599.  
  1600. Watts, Michael J. “Antinomies of Community: Some Thoughts on Geography, Resources and Empire.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29.2 (2004): 195–216.
  1601.  
  1602. DOI: 10.1111/j.0020-2754.2004.00125.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1603.  
  1604. Watts is the leading scholar of oil and its influence in Nigeria. This article examines the relationship between the modern oil industry and local communities in Nigeria.
  1605.  
  1606. Find this resource:
  1607.  
  1608.  
  1609. Famine and Food Shortages
  1610. Many scholars have argued that famine served as a Malthusian check on African populations before the 20th century and that development has reduced the incident and severity of famines except in the case of social and political disruption. Citing the subsistence crises of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, other scholars have pointed to social and economic factors as helping determine when a drought or other natural phenomenon turns into a famine. Please see the Oxford Bibliographies article on Famine. Studies such as Miller 1982 and Ballard 1986 have sought to place the issue of hunger in historical perspective. Davis 2001, Kjekshus 1977, Giblin 1993, and the essays in Johnson and Anderson 1988 argue that colonial conquest helped create more and more severe famines. Maddox 1990 looks at a severe famine in Tanzania during World War I. McCann 1987 focuses on structural changes in the 20th century as creating the conditions for famine.
  1611.  
  1612. Ballard, Charles. “Drought and Economic Distress: South Africa in the 1800s.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17.2 (1986): 359–378.
  1613.  
  1614. DOI: 10.2307/204770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1615.  
  1616. Ballard shows how the global cooling of the first decades of the 19th century coincided with a severe famine in northern South Africa called Madhlatule. He provides evidence that this disruption helped create the conditions for the rise of the Zulu Kingdom.
  1617.  
  1618. Find this resource:
  1619.  
  1620.  
  1621. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. New York: Verso, 2001.
  1622.  
  1623. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1624.  
  1625. In a provocative book Davis links climate disruptions caused by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation with food crises in Africa, India, and China that in turn solidified European domination of the world. Davis argues that disruptions caused by the rise of global capitalism destroyed the ability of many societies to cope with environmental variability and led in part to the expansion and strengthening of colonial rule.
  1626.  
  1627. Find this resource:
  1628.  
  1629.  
  1630. Giblin, James. The Politics of Environmental Control in Northeastern Tanzania, 1840–1940. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
  1631.  
  1632. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1633.  
  1634. Giblin’s work focuses on the relationship between colonial conquest and environmental change. He argues that colonialism disrupted the ability of African communities to prevent drought from becoming famine.
  1635.  
  1636. Find this resource:
  1637.  
  1638.  
  1639. Johnson, Douglas H., and David M. Anderson, eds. The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.
  1640.  
  1641. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1642.  
  1643. This pathbreaking collection of case studies focused on Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda shows how African societies dealt with subsistence crisis in the past and how these strategies informed more recent efforts at survival in the face of dramatic environmental change and state extraction.
  1644.  
  1645. Find this resource:
  1646.  
  1647.  
  1648. Kjekshus, Helge. Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History: The Case of Tanganyika, 1850–1950. London: Heinemann, 1977.
  1649.  
  1650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1651.  
  1652. Kjekshus’s influential study argues that African societies in what became modern Tanzania “controlled” their environments and maximized their potential for survival before dramatic disruptions associated with colonial conquest. While some scholars have found the work romantic in its view of African technological achievement, others have supported the author’s conclusions.
  1653.  
  1654. Find this resource:
  1655.  
  1656.  
  1657. Maddox, Gregory H. “Mtunya: Famine in Central Tanzania, 1917–1920.” Journal of African History 31.2 (1990): 181–198.
  1658.  
  1659. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1660.  
  1661. A case study of a famine caused both by drought and war in German East Africa. The author argues that the crisis became a local metaphor for colonial rule.
  1662.  
  1663. Find this resource:
  1664.  
  1665.  
  1666. McCann, James C. From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia: A Rural History 1900–1935. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.
  1667.  
  1668. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1669.  
  1670. McCann’s study documents how increasing extraction by the state in the Wallo region of Ethiopia in the early 20th century increased stratification and drove poorer farmers onto more marginal land. As a result material conditions for most farmers declined and famine became more common.
  1671.  
  1672. Find this resource:
  1673.  
  1674.  
  1675. Miller, Joseph C. “The Significance of Drought, Disease and Famine in the Agriculturally Marginal Zones of West-Central Africa.” Journal of African History 23.1 (1982): 17–61.
  1676.  
  1677. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700020235Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1678.  
  1679. A pioneering article attempts to reconstruct the history of drought and famine from Portuguese records and oral sources.
  1680.  
  1681. Find this resource:
  1682.  
  1683.  
  1684. Food Crises since Independence
  1685. In the 1970s and 1980s severe famines in West Africa, Sudan, and Ethiopia created immense concern about the long-term sustainability of African rural societies, as seen in Franke and Chasin 1980 and Berry 1984. De Waal 1989 argues that famine has to be understood not just as absolute lack of food but as a crisis that people seek to survive through husbanding resources for recovery while Keen 2008 examines those who benefit from “famine.” Cliggett 2005 looks at the issue of hunger in terms of social differentiation. Watts 1983 is a particularly influential study of northern Nigeria. The essays in Glantz 1987 focus on the links between colonial and postcolonial crises.
  1686.  
  1687. Berry, Sara S. “The Food Crisis and Agrarian Change in Africa: A Review Essay.” African Studies Review 27.2 (1984): 59–112.
  1688.  
  1689. DOI: 10.2307/524116Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1690.  
  1691. This article reviews the dire state of food security in much of Africa in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The author concludes that broader economic conditions helped create the crisis as much as environmental change did.
  1692.  
  1693. Find this resource:
  1694.  
  1695.  
  1696. Cliggett, Lisa. Grains from Grass: Aging, Gender, and Famine in Rural Africa. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005.
  1697.  
  1698. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1699.  
  1700. Cliggett’s study of a community in Zambia relocated because of the construction of Kariba Dam shows how the move forced them into a cycle of drought, food shortages, and social disruption.
  1701.  
  1702. Find this resource:
  1703.  
  1704.  
  1705. de Waal, Alexander. Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984–1985. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
  1706.  
  1707. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1708.  
  1709. De Waal’s important study of the famine in Darfur, Sudan, shows that rural communities used a multitude of strategies designed not only to promote physical survival but also to husband resources for recovery. He argues that disease not starvation caused the most mortality during the crisis and that external assistance made very little difference.
  1710.  
  1711. Find this resource:
  1712.  
  1713.  
  1714. Franke, R. W., and B. H. Chasin. Seeds of Famine: Ecological Destruction and the Development Dilemma in the West African Sahel. Montclair, NJ: Allenheld, Osmun, 1980.
  1715.  
  1716. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1717.  
  1718. A study of the great Sahelian drought and famine of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it points to the effect of French colonial policy and then development policy since independence in the region as generating conditions that increased vulnerability both environmentally and socially.
  1719.  
  1720. Find this resource:
  1721.  
  1722.  
  1723. Glantz, Michael H., ed. Drought and Hunger in Africa: Denying Famine a Future. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  1724.  
  1725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1726.  
  1727. This collection of essays presents a broad set of cases of disaster in Africa. Most argue for social as well as environmental causes for hunger.
  1728.  
  1729. Find this resource:
  1730.  
  1731.  
  1732. Keen, David. The Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan, 1983–1989. Oxford: James Currey, 2008.
  1733.  
  1734. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1735.  
  1736. Keen argues that Sudanese government officials, merchants, transport owners, and militias benefited from the famine in Sudan in the 1980s as well as the international “disaster industry.”
  1737.  
  1738. Find this resource:
  1739.  
  1740.  
  1741. Watts, Michael. Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
  1742.  
  1743. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1744.  
  1745. Watts’s study of famine in northern Nigeria and Niger emphasizes the transition from precolonial society, which faced drought and hunger but had built-in social institutions that reduced suffering, to the colonial era, which destroyed much of these social supports.
  1746.  
  1747. Find this resource:
  1748.  
  1749.  
  1750. Gender
  1751. Access to environmental resources, like all others in a society, is often gendered, as argued by Leach 1994. Leach and Green 1997 reviews the relationship between gender and environmental in the historiography of African environments. Moore and Vaughan 1994 and Carney and Watts 1991 look at long-term change in gendered relations to the environment. Vaughan 1987, Maddox 1996, and Sunseri 1997 examine the gendered access to resources during subsistence crises. Schroeder 1999 examines how development programs changed gender relations in one case.
  1752.  
  1753. Carney, Judith, and Michael Watts. “Disciplining Women? Rice, Mechanization, and the Evolution of Mandinka Gender Relations in Senegambia.” Signs 16 (1991): 651–681.
  1754.  
  1755. DOI: 10.1086/494698Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1756.  
  1757. Carney and Watts show that a division between women controlling food production and men cash crop production developed in the 19th century with the rise of a market for groundnuts from the Senegambia region. Colonial efforts to promote intensification of rice production in the 20th century floundered in part because of gendered struggles over control of labor and land for rice production.
  1758.  
  1759. Find this resource:
  1760.  
  1761.  
  1762. Leach, Melissa. Rainforest Relations: Gender and Resource Use among the Mende of Gola, Sierra Leone. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994.
  1763.  
  1764. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1765.  
  1766. Leach pioneers the concept of examining gender relations and resource use and control within a forest setting by emphasizing both sides of the gender relationship. She shows how this forest has remained a site of contestation up to the civil war in Sierra Leone.
  1767.  
  1768. Find this resource:
  1769.  
  1770.  
  1771. Leach, Melissa, and Cathy Green. “Gender and Environmental History: From Representations of Women and Nature to Gender Analysis of Ecology and Politics.” Environment and History 3.3 (1997): 343–370.
  1772.  
  1773. DOI: 10.3197/096734097779555818Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1774.  
  1775. Drawing on examples from Africa and India, the authors show that latter-day policy concerns have often dictated historical views on women and the environment. The authors call for a more nuanced view that sees gender relations and access to resources as variable rather than romanticizing them.
  1776.  
  1777. Find this resource:
  1778.  
  1779.  
  1780. Maddox, Gregory H. “Gender and Famine in Central Tanzania: 1916–1961.” African Studies Review 39.1 (1996): 83–101.
  1781.  
  1782. DOI: 10.2307/524670Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1783.  
  1784. The article argues that differing access to resources resulted in gendered differences of the experience of food scarcity, with men having the opportunity to migrate in times of dearth while women and dependents often faced severe shortages of food.
  1785.  
  1786. Find this resource:
  1787.  
  1788.  
  1789. Moore, Henrietta L., and Megan Vaughan. Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–1990. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.
  1790.  
  1791. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1792.  
  1793. The work charts changes in gendered access to resources as northern Zambia underwent colonial rule and the rise of developmentalism. Local communities continued to practice a slash and burn agriculture as part of their survival strategies.
  1794.  
  1795. Find this resource:
  1796.  
  1797.  
  1798. Schroeder, Richard A. Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in the Gambia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
  1799.  
  1800. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1801.  
  1802. Schroeder shows how two development initiatives in Gambia responded to changing international concerns and worked at cross-purposes. In the 1980s programs supported the development of market gardening, often controlled by women; in the 1990s, a new emphasis on afforestation allowed mostly male landowners to drive the market gardens off the land and generated deep social conflict.
  1803.  
  1804. Find this resource:
  1805.  
  1806.  
  1807. Sunseri, Thaddeus. “Famine and Wild Pigs: Gender Struggles and the Outbreak of the Majimaji War in Uzaramo.” Journal of African History 38.2 (1997): 235–259.
  1808.  
  1809. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853796006937Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1810.  
  1811. Sunseri shows that in eastern German East Africa, the great Maji Maji uprising developed out of a famine caused by deteriorating environmental conditions as the colonial state forced men into wage labor and destroyed local communities’ control over forest resources. Women took the lead in developing responses to this crisis, which later historians interpreted as support for a nationalist movement.
  1812.  
  1813. Find this resource:
  1814.  
  1815.  
  1816. Vaughan, Megan. The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in Twentieth-Century Malawi. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  1817.  
  1818. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511549885Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1819.  
  1820. Vaughan’s study of a famine in 1949 in Malawi emphasizes the differential experience of men and women during the crisis. She highlights the long-term, structural changes that made the region vulnerable to shortage and the way differential access to resources developed during the crisis.
  1821.  
  1822. Find this resource:
  1823.  
  1824.  
  1825. Wildlife and Nature Conservation
  1826. For outsiders, one of the most common images of Africa is that of its wildlife and preserved habitats. Adams and McShane 1996 explores the creation of this myth. Carruthers 1995, Neumann 1998, and Brockington 2002 show how natural areas were created by excluding people, many of whom had long-standing claims to the land. Hulme and Murphree 2001 looks at attempts to promote co-existence and improve rural lives. Ranger 1999 and Giles-Vernick 2002 explore deep relationships between African communities and landscapes that have become objects of conservation. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies article on Conservation and Wildlife.
  1827.  
  1828. Adams, Jonathan S., and Thomas O. McShane. The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation without Illusions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
  1829.  
  1830. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1831.  
  1832. This important work argues that seeing Africa and especially its nature reservations as “untouched by human hands” profoundly misrepresents history. The authors contend that conservation can only come through action by Africans themselves.
  1833.  
  1834. Find this resource:
  1835.  
  1836.  
  1837. Brockington, Dan. Fortress Conservation: The Preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
  1838.  
  1839. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1840.  
  1841. This book demonstrates that the creation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve in northern Tanzania displaced thousands of people and disrupted their livelihoods from the 1950s on. The removal of people and livestock from the area created a “wilderness” where none had existed before and came in collaboration between the Tanzanian state, Western-based conservation groups, and the tourism industry.
  1842.  
  1843. Find this resource:
  1844.  
  1845.  
  1846. Carruthers, Jane. Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal Press, 1995.
  1847.  
  1848. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1849.  
  1850. Carruthers shows how the creation of Kruger National Park rested in part on an imaginary linking of its namesake with the cause of wildlife conservation.
  1851.  
  1852. Find this resource:
  1853.  
  1854.  
  1855. Giles-Vernick, Tamara. Cutting the Vines of the Past: Environmental Histories of the Central African Rain Forest. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2002.
  1856.  
  1857. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1858.  
  1859. Giles-Vernick explores the deep connections between local communities and their forest environment in the Sanga River Valley of the Central African Republic. She argues that colonial exploitation has segued into conservationist exclusion for local people.
  1860.  
  1861. Find this resource:
  1862.  
  1863.  
  1864. Hulme, David, and Marshall Murphree, eds. African Wildlife and Livelihoods: The Promise and Performance of Community Conservation. Oxford: James Currey, 2001.
  1865.  
  1866. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1867.  
  1868. This collection examines the effectiveness of community-based and market-driven efforts at wildlife and landscape conservation with case studies from eastern and southern Africa. The case studies find some successes in promoting the dual goals of conservation and improvement in the lives of people in rural communities, but others note that some conservation goals may have to continue to rely on preservationist policies that exclude local people and enhanced law enforcement.
  1869.  
  1870. Find this resource:
  1871.  
  1872.  
  1873. Neumann, Roderick P. Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  1874.  
  1875. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1876.  
  1877. While focused on the history of Arusha National Park in Tanzania, Neumann shows how the conflict between conservation and the rights of local communities to physical and spiritual resources developed early in the colonial era and continued into the more recent era of wildlife conservation. His work provides a review of the intellectual history of conservation in Africa as well as a case study of a particular small landscape.
  1878.  
  1879. Find this resource:
  1880.  
  1881.  
  1882. Ranger, Terence. Voices from the Rocks: Nature, Culture and History in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
  1883.  
  1884. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1885.  
  1886. This work by one of the pioneers of African history examines one particular landscape in western Zimbabwe, now enshrined in a national park. He argues that both African and European understanding of the region depended on differing conceptions of the proper nature of human-environment relations.
  1887.  
  1888. Find this resource:
  1889.  
  1890.  
  1891. Hunting and Wildlife
  1892. During the colonial era, safari hunting served as one of the catalysts for wildlife conservation. MacKenzie 1989 puts this development in a global perspective while Steinhart 2005 looks at the case of Kenya.
  1893.  
  1894. MacKenzie, John M. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1989.
  1895.  
  1896. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1897.  
  1898. The author shows how big game hunting helped drive imperial conservation policy, especially in colonial Africa. He demonstrates that Africans lost access to what had been a valuable resource for subsistence and trade.
  1899.  
  1900. Find this resource:
  1901.  
  1902.  
  1903. Steinhart, Edward I. Black Poachers, White Hunters: A Social History of Hunting in Colonial Kenya. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005.
  1904.  
  1905. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1906.  
  1907. Steinhart argues that colonial big game hunting in Kenya turned Africans into “poachers.” He explores the changing context and practices of local hunting.
  1908.  
  1909. Find this resource:
  1910.  
  1911.  
  1912. The Serengeti
  1913. The Serengeti ecosystem stretching from southern Kenya into northern Tanzania is one of the most extensively studied conserved areas in the world, dominated by the annual migration of huge wildebeest herds. Sinclair and Norton-Griffiths 1979, Sinclair and Arcese 1995, and Sinclair 2008 present the scientific and conservationist views of this ecosystem. Dublin 1991 (whose author is also a contributor to the above volumes) shows that the environment of the region has changed over time and challenges the notion of a stable “natural” equilibrium. Shetler 2007 charts the history of the peoples expelled in the creation of the various conserved areas that make up the Serengeti.
  1914.  
  1915. Dublin, Holly T. “Dynamics of the Serengeti-Mara Woodlands: An Historical Perspective.” Forest and Conservation History 35.4 (1991): 168–178.
  1916.  
  1917. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1918.  
  1919. Dublin argues against the idea of a static environment in the Serengeti. She shows that the mix of woodlands and grasslands in the broader Serengeti region of Kenya and Tanzania has changed over time in a complex interaction of animal population, human population, and climate.
  1920.  
  1921. Find this resource:
  1922.  
  1923.  
  1924. Shetler, Jan Bender. Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007.
  1925.  
  1926. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1927.  
  1928. Shetler’s work explores the history of the peoples who used to live in what is now part of reserved lands of the Serengeti conservation system. She shows how memory of ancestral homes and resources survive among communities forced to leave what became parkland.
  1929.  
  1930. Find this resource:
  1931.  
  1932.  
  1933. Sinclair, A. R. E., ed. Serengeti III: Human Impacts on Ecosystem Dynamics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
  1934.  
  1935. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226760353.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1936.  
  1937. The third volume of this series focuses on human interaction with the broader Serengeti ecosystem.
  1938.  
  1939. Find this resource:
  1940.  
  1941.  
  1942. Sinclair, A. R. E., and Peter Arcese, eds. Serengeti II: Dynamics, Management, and Conservation of an Ecosystem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  1943.  
  1944. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1945.  
  1946. The second volume of the series examines the effects of both growing human populations in the area and changes in animal populations due to the eradication of rinderpest and hunting.
  1947.  
  1948. Find this resource:
  1949.  
  1950.  
  1951. Sinclair, A. R. E., and M. Norton-Griffiths, eds. Serengeti: The Dynamics of an Ecosystem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
  1952.  
  1953. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1954.  
  1955. This ongoing three-volume series represents a massive compendium of research by scholars in many fields on one of the most famous ecosystems in Africa. While most authors work within a conservationist paradigm that emphasizes the destructiveness of human action on the environment, dissenting voices are also included. Followed by Sinclair and Arcese 1995 and Sinclair 2008.
  1956.  
  1957. Find this resource:
  1958.  
  1959.  
  1960. Urbanization and Environment
  1961. Africa, while having an ancient history of urban areas, has rapidly urbanized over the last century. Please see the Oxford Bibliographies article on Urbanism and Urbanization. The environmental history of urbanization, though, has not kept pace. Curtin 1985 examines the relationship between disease environment and colonial urban planning while Bissell 2011 argues that colonial planning often was an exercise in futility. Mlozi 1996 and Lee-Smith 2010 look at the important role urban agriculture plays in African cities, while Myers 2005 takes up garbage.
  1962.  
  1963. Bissell, William Cunningham. Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
  1964.  
  1965. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1966.  
  1967. Bissell’s study of urban planning in colonial Zanzibar emphasizes randomness that borders on chaos in the process. What actually happened had little relationship to plans developed.
  1968.  
  1969. Find this resource:
  1970.  
  1971.  
  1972. Curtin, Philip D. “Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa.” American Historical Review 90.3 (1985): 594–613.
  1973.  
  1974. DOI: 10.2307/1860958Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1975.  
  1976. Curtin notes how ideas of healthy environments and sanitation were used to plan colonial cities in Africa. Most required racial segregation and put European officialdom at higher elevations when possible.
  1977.  
  1978. Find this resource:
  1979.  
  1980.  
  1981. Lee-Smith, Diana. “Cities Feeding People: An Update on Urban Agriculture in Equatorial Africa.” Environment and Urbanization 22.2 (2010): 483–499.
  1982.  
  1983. DOI: 10.1177/0956247810377383Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1984.  
  1985. The author surveys recent research on urban agriculture to show that historically it has been critical for urban food supplies in Africa and helps prevent environmental degradation.
  1986.  
  1987. Find this resource:
  1988.  
  1989.  
  1990. Mlozi, Malongo R. S. “Urban Agriculture in Dar es Salaam: Its Contribution to Solving the Economic Crisis and the Damage It Does to the Environment.” Development Southern Africa 13.1 (1996): 47–65.
  1991.  
  1992. DOI: 10.1080/03768359608439873Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1993.  
  1994. The author emphasizes what many observers see as the environmental costs to urban agriculture with a case study from a rapidly growing African city.
  1995.  
  1996. Find this resource:
  1997.  
  1998.  
  1999. Myers, Garth. Disposable Cities: Garbage, Governance, and Sustainable Development in Urban Africa. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
  2000.  
  2001. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2002.  
  2003. This study of garbage in three African cities shows how a United Nations program continues colonial-era practices of planning from above.
  2004.  
  2005. Find this resource:
  2006.  
  2007.  
  2008. Memoirs and Narrative Sources
  2009. African environments have inspired a great deal of prose. The essays in Caminero-Santangelo and Myers 2011 explore the significance of such works, including some of the others listed in this section. Roosevelt 1988 is perhaps the most famous example of the great white hunter narrative. Grzimek and Grzimek 1961 carries the motif into the age of photo safaris. Mathiessen 1991 updates the image. Fossey 1983 and Goodall 1988 provide accounts of the struggle for conservation that is thrilling for many and troubling for some. Maathai 2006 and Saro Wiwa 1995 lay bare the costs of trying to both improve people’s lives and preserve an environment.
  2010.  
  2011. Caminero-Santangelo, Byron, and Garth Myers, eds. Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2011.
  2012.  
  2013. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2014.  
  2015. These essays examine the idea of environment in literary works ranging from Theodore Roosevelt’s travels to narrative accounts to the writings of modern African novelists.
  2016.  
  2017. Find this resource:
  2018.  
  2019.  
  2020. Fossey, Dian. Gorillas in the Mist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
  2021.  
  2022. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2023.  
  2024. Fossey was a controversial wildlife biologist and conservationist who was murdered in Rwanda. She alienated many with her abrasive ways.
  2025.  
  2026. Find this resource:
  2027.  
  2028.  
  2029. Goodall, Jane. My Life with the Chimpanzees. New York: Pocket Books, 1988.
  2030.  
  2031. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2032.  
  2033. Goodall is famous both for studying chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania and for advocating for conservation. She details her efforts to include local communities in the effort.
  2034.  
  2035. Find this resource:
  2036.  
  2037.  
  2038. Grzimek, Bernhard, and Michael Grzimek. Serengeti Shall Not Die. Translated by E. L. Rewald and D. Rewald. New York: Dutton, 1961.
  2039.  
  2040. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2041.  
  2042. The Grzimeks became famous as promoters of conservation through outside intervention in East Africa. After his son’s death, the elder Grzimek advocated for a fortress approach to nature preservation that excluded local communities.
  2043.  
  2044. Find this resource:
  2045.  
  2046.  
  2047. Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
  2048.  
  2049. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2050.  
  2051. This Nobel Prize winner’s memoir covers her creation of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and her attempts to link conservation with gender empowerment.
  2052.  
  2053. Find this resource:
  2054.  
  2055.  
  2056. Mathiessen, Peter. African Silences. New York: Random House, 1991.
  2057.  
  2058. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2059.  
  2060. This work by an acclaimed nature writer laments the fate of elephants in Africa and points out how they have shaped the environment of the continent.
  2061.  
  2062. Find this resource:
  2063.  
  2064.  
  2065. Roosevelt, Theodore. African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988.
  2066.  
  2067. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2068.  
  2069. Roosevelt’s post-presidential safari in Africa became both part of his story of his commitment to conservation and notorious for the amount of game his party killed.
  2070.  
  2071. Find this resource:
  2072.  
  2073.  
  2074. Saro Wiwa, Ken. A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary. New York: Penguin, 1995.
  2075.  
  2076. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2077.  
  2078. Saro Wiwa was arrested and executed by the Nigerian state for leading a protest movement against environmental damage and lack of local control caused by the oil industry in the southeastern part of the country. This account of a stay in prison lays out his concerns.
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