Africa and World War II

by Judith A. Byfield (Editor), Carolyn Brown (Editor), Timothy Parsons (Editor)

This volume considers the military, economic, and political significance of Africa during World War II. The essays feature new research and innovative approaches to the historiography of Africa and bring to the fore issues of race, gender, and labor during the war, topics that have not yet received much critical attention. It explores the experiences of male and female combatants, peasant producers, women traders, missionaries, and sex workers. The first section offers three introductory essays that give a continent-wide overview of how Africa sustained the Allied effort through labor and resources. The six sections that follow offer individual case studies from different parts of the continent. Contributors offer a macro and micro view of the multiple levels on which Africa's contributions shaped the war as well as the ways in which the war affected individuals and communities and transformed Africa's political, economic, and social landscape.

Genres: History, Africa

566 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2014

Reviews

[Caleb D]

Africa and World War II, edited by Timothy Parsons, Judith A. Byfield, and Ahmad Alawad Sikainga, is an excellent collection of essays that explores Africa’s many contributions to and experiences during the Second World War. Rather than focusing on a single narrative, the editors bring together chapters covering a broad range of topics, including military service, labor mobilization, colonial administration, economic development, nationalism, gender, and the political and social changes that emerged during and after the war. This variety makes the book a valuable resource for anyone seeking a more comprehensive understanding of Africa’s wartime experience.

Although some information is repeated across chapters, it never feels unnecessary because each author approaches similar events from a different regional or thematic perspective. Kenya appears throughout the volume in discussions of military recruitment, colonial governance, and wartime mobilization, making the book particularly useful for researchers interested in Kenya’s role in World War II.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its extensive scholarly apparatus. Each chapter concludes with detailed footnotes and references that point readers toward additional primary and secondary sources. For researchers, these bibliographies are almost as valuable as the chapters themselves, providing numerous avenues for further study. Overall, Africa and World War II is a well-written, informative, and highly recommended resource for students and scholars interested in the African experience during the Second World War.

[Jade Vandel]

A very good insight on how Africa participated in the war itself, rather than the more widely known perspective of how Europe fought in Africa. There was a variety of histories, including, but not limited to, economic, feminist, and social histories that provided differing and necessary perspectives on how the war effected Africa in multiple ways. The selling point of this book is how multiple chapters tied how the war affected national and liberation movements following the war. This aspect for me was the most important in terms of contextualizing this knowledge with current politics. Some chapters were more dense than others in regards to sheer information versus analysis, but this book provides valuable history about Africa's contributions for the war outside of a strictly European perspective.