Abstract:
P
AUL Tiyambe Zeleza, the author of
this book, is a historian by academic
training. But he is a polymath and
almost an intellectual bionic boy: he
is an award-winning novelist, a short story
writer, a social scientist, philosopher and literary
critic.
Manufacturing African Studies and Crises
(henceforth abbreviated as MAS&C) is a very
interesting and provocative book whose arguments
and overall tone and style never flag. I
say provocative not simply because he takes
on all branches of Africanist scholarship and
demolishes most of their cherished orthodoxies.
This is also because his own ideas do actually
provoke response and further thoughts
from the reader, be it in agreement or disagreement.
It is also provocative in one original
sense: it is very rarely that the crises that have
beset Africa since colonial times are ever joined
to the 'studies' of the continent. After all, 'study'
of a particular phenomenon or subject is supposed
to increase our knowledge of it, and
therefore enhance our ability to solve problems
emanating from it. But Zeleza shows very convincingly
in this book that 'studies' of Africa,
from colonial times to the present, plus the
solutions arising therefrom, have in fact contributed
their own fair share to those crisesthat
not a few of the crises, be they man-made
or natural, were in fact manufactured by the
studies.