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AFRICAN STUDIES COLLECTION

HERSKOVITS AWARD

The ASA acknowledges, in honor of Melville J. Herskovits, the author(s) of the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English during the preceding year. The criteria are "deep and honest scholarship and originality of analysis." The committee chooses from among over 50 books written by a single or joint authors and not edited books or translations. The prize was created in 1965 with an annual award of $500. Nomination deadline is 1 May.

2000 - Nelson Kasfir, Ch. [Suzanne Blier, Abiola Irele, Biodun Jeyifo, David Robinson]

Winner

Hunt, N. (1999). A Colonial lexicon: Of birth ritual, medicalization, and mobility in the Congo. Durham: Duke University Press.

Finalists

Donham, D. (1999). Marxist modern: An Ethnographic hisotry of the Ethiopian revolution. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press; Oxford: James Currey.

Ellis, S. (1999). The Mask of anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the religious dimension of an African civil war. New York: New York Univ. Press.

Piot, C. (1999). Remotely global: Village modernity in west Africa. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Ranger, T. (1999). Voices from the rocks: Nature, culture & history in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe. Harare: Baobab Books; Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press; Oxford: James Currey.

Samatar, A. (1999). An African miracle: State and class leadership and colonial legacy in Botswana development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.


1999 - Committee: Luise White, Ch. [Rowland Abiodun, Nelson Kasfir]

Winner

Uvin, P. (1998). Aiding violence: The development enterprise in Rwanda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.

Finalists

Bay, E.G. (1998). Wives of the leopard: Gender, politics, and culture in the kingdom of Dahomey. Charlottesville:

University of Virginia Press.

Jules-Rosette, B. (1998). Black Paris: The African writers' landscape. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Klein, M.A. (1998). Slavery and colonial rule in French West Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Strother, Z.S. (1998). Inventing masks: Agency and history in the art of the Central Pende. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thornton, J.K. (1998). The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian movement, 1684-1706. New York:

Cambridge University Press.


1998 - Committee: Rowland Abiodun, Ch. [Luise White]

Winner

Vogels, J.W. (1997). Baule : African art, western eyes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Finalists

Barry B. (1998). Senegambia and the Atlantic slave trade. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Beidelman, T. O. (1997). The cool knife: Imagery of gender, sexuality, and moral education in Kaguru initiation ritual.

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Comaroff, J.L. & Comaroff, J. (1997). Of revelation and revolution: The dialectics of modernity on a South African frontier (Vol. 2).

Chicago : University of Chicago Press.

Cooper, B.M. (1997). Marriage in Maradi: Gender and culture in a Hausa society in Niger, 1900-1989. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Oyewunmi, O. (1997). The invention of women: Making an African sense of Western gender discourses. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.


1997 - Committee: Rowland Abiodun, Ch.

Winners

Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Van Onselen, C. (1996). The seed is mine: The life of Kas Maine, a South African sharecropper, 1894-1985. New York:

Hill and Wang.

Finalists

Cooper, F. (1996). Decolonization and African society: The labor question in French and British Africa. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Delius, P. (1996). A lion amongst the cattle: reconstruction and resistance in the Northern Transvaal. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

Fabian, Y. (1996). Rembergin the present: Painting and popular history in Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Isaacman, A. (1996). Cotton is the mother of poverty: Peasants, work, and rural struggle in colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Pemberton III, J.& Afolayan, F.S. (1996). Yoruba sacred kingship: "A power like that of the gods. Washington, DC:

Smithsonian Institution Press.


1996 - Committee: Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ch. [Jennifer Widner, Myron Echenberg]

Winner

Glassman, J. (1995). Feast and riot: Revelry, rebellion and popular consciousness on the Swahili coast 1856-1888.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Finalists

Bickford. V. (1995). Pride and racial prejudice in Victorian Cape Town. New York, NY: Cambridge University press.

Landau, P. (1995). The realm of the word: Language, gender, and Christianity in a southern African kingdom.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Malkki, L.H. (1995). Purity and exile: Violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania.

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

McCann, J.C. (1995). People of the plow: An agricultural history of Ethiopia, 1800-1990. Madison, WI:

University of Wisconsin Press.

Penvenne, J. (1995). African workers and colonial racism: Mozambican strategies and struggles in Lourenco Marques, 1877-1962.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Renne, E.P. (1995). Cloth that does not die: The meaning of cloth in Bunu social life. Seattle,WA: University of Washington Press.

Welch Jr., C.E. (1995). Protecting human rights in Africa: Strategies and roles of non-governmental organizations.

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania.


1995 - Committee: K. Fields

Winner

Moore, H.L. & Vaughn, M. (1994). Cutting down trees: Gender, nutrition, and agricultural change in the Northern Province

of Zambia, 1890-1990. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Finalists

1994 - Committee:

Winner

Atkins, K. (1993). The moon is Dead! Give us our money! The cultural origins of an African work ethnic, Natal,

South Africa, 1843-1900. Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann

Finalists

Berry, S. (1993). No condition is permanent: The social dynamics of agrarian change in sub-saharan Africa. Madison, WI:

University of Wisconsin Press.

Brooks, G.E. (1993). Landlords and strangers: Ecology, society, trade in western Africa, 1000-1630. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Lambek, M. (1993). Knowledge and practice in Mayotte: Local discourses of Islam, sorcery, and spirit possession.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Smith, F. (1993). Whose language? What power?: A universal conflict in a South African setting. New York, NY:

Teacher's College Press.


1993 - Committee:

Winner

Appiah, K.A. (1992). In my father's house: Africa in the philosophy of culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Finalists

Apter, A. (1992). Black critics and kings: The hermeneutics of power in Yoruba society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago

Press.

Boone, C. (1992). Merchant capital and the roots of state power in Senegal, 1930-1985. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Davidson, B. (1992). The black man's burden: Africa and the curse of the nation-state. New York, NY: Random House.

Marx, A. (1992). Lessons of struggle: South African internal opposition, 1960-1990. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Middleton, J. (1992). The world of the Swahili: An African mercantile civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Schmidt, E. (1992). Peasants, traders, and wives: Shona women in the history of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Skinner, Elliot P. (1992). African Americans and U.S. Policy toward Africa, 1850-1924. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.

Stroller, P. (1992). The cinematic griot: The ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Taylor, C.C. (1992). Milk, honey, and money: Changing concepts in Rwandan healing. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.


1992 - Committee: Suzanne Blier, Ch. [ ]

Winner

Echenberg, M. J. (1991). Colonial conscripts: The tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Finalists

Bozzoli, B. (1991). Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, life strategy, and migrancy in South Africa, 1900-1983. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

Comaroff, J.L. & Comaroff, J. (1991). Of revelation and revolution: Christianity, colonalism, and consciousness in South Africa.

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,

Horowitz, D.L. (1991). A democratic South Africa? Constitutional engineering in a divided society. Berkeley, CA:

University of California Press.


1991 - Committee: Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Ch. [ Suzanne Blier, Sally Falk Moore]

Winners

Fabian, J. (1990). Power and performance: Ethnographic explorations through proverbial wisdom and theater in Shaba, Zaire.

Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

White, L. (1990). The comforts of home: Prostitution in colonial Nairobi. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Finalists

Brown, N.J. (1990). Peasant politics in modern Egypt: The struggle against the state. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Feierman, S. (1990). Peasants intellectuals: Anthropology and history in Tanzania. Madison, WI: Universitiy of Wisconsin Press.

Ferguston, J. (1990). The anti-politics machine. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Mandala, E.C. (1990). Work and control in a peasant economy: A history of the lower Tchiri Valley in Malawi, 1859-1960.

Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Manning, P. (1990). Slavery and African life: Accidental, oriental, and African slave trades. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Miller, C.L. (1990). Theories of Africans: Francophone literature and anthropology in Africa. Chicago.IL: University of Chicago Press.

Vansina, J. (1990). Paths in the rainforests: Toward a history of political tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison, WI:

University of Wisconsin Press.

Waterman, C.A. (1990). Juju: A social history and ethnography of an African popualr music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.


1990 - Committee: John Middleton, Ch. [Virginia Delancy, Bogumil Jewsiewicki]

Winner

Wilmsen, E. (1989). Land filled with flies: A political economy of the Kalahari. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Finalists

Brody, J. (1989). Wombs and alien spirits: Women, Men, and the Zaria cult in northern Sudan. Madison, WI:

University of Wisconsin Press.

Jackson, M. (1989). Paths toward a clearing: Radical empiricism and ethnographic inquiry. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Ottenberg, S. (1989). Boyhood rituals in an African society: An interpretation. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

Wilks, I. (1989). Wa and the Wala. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.


1989 - John Middleton, Ch. [Virginia Delancy, Bogumil Jewsiewicki]

Winners

Miller, J.C. (1988). Way of death: Merchant capitalism and the Angolan slave trade. Madison, WI:

University of Wisconsin Press.

Mudimbe, V.U. (1988). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy and the order of knowledge. Bloomington, IN:

Indiana University Press.

Finalists

Crowder, M. (1988). The flogging of Phinehas McIntosh: A tale of colonial folly and injustice, Bechuanaland 1933.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Martin, S.M. (1988). Palm oil and protest: An economic history of the Ngwa region, south-eastern Nigeria 1800-1960. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

McNaughton, P.R. (1988). The Mande blacksmiths: Knowledge, power and art in West Africa. Bloomington, IN:

Indiana University Press.

Newbury, C. (1988). The cohesion of oppression: Clientship and ethnicity in Rwanda 1860-1960. New York, NY:

Columbia University Press.

Spencer, P. (1988). The Maasai of Matapato: A study of rituals of rebellion. Bloomington, IN:

Indiana University Press.


1988 - Committee:

Winner

Iliffe, J. (1987). The African Poor: A history. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Finalists

Biersteker, T. J. (1987). Multinationals, the state, and control of the Nigerian economy. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Blier, S.P. (1987). The anatomy of architecture: Ontology and metaphor in Batammaliba architectural expression. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Callaway, B.J. (1987). Muslim Hausa women in Nigeria: Tradition and Change. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Cooper, F. (1987). On the African waterfront: Urban disorder and the transformation of work in colonial Mombasa. New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press.

Joseph, R. (1987). Democracy and prebendal politics in Nigeria: The rise and fall of the Second Republic. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Markakis, J. (1987). National and class conflict in the Horn of Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Nunley, J.W. (1987). Moving with the face of the devil: Art and politics in urban West Africa. Urbana, IL:

University of Illinois Press.

Pouwels, R.L. (1987). Horn and crescent: Cultural change and traditional Islam on the East African coast, 800-1900.

New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.


1987 - Committee:

Winners

Beidelman, T.O. (1986). Moral Imaginiation in Kaguru modes of thought. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Lubeck, P.M. (1986). Islam and urban labor in northern Nigeria: The making of a Muslim working class. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.


1986 - Committee:

Winner

Berry, S. (1985). Fathers work for their sons: Accumulation, mobility, and class formation in an extended Yoruba community.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.


1985 - Committee:

Winner

Robertson, C. (1984). Sharing the same bowl. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.


1984 - Committee: Jean Hay, Ch.

Winners

Hontoundji, P. (1983). African philosophy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Peel, J.D.Y. (1983). Ijeshas and Nigerians: The incorporation of a Yoruba kingdom. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Finalists

Bonner, P. (1983). Kings, commoners and concessionaires: The evolution and dissolution of the nineteenth century

Swazi state. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Drewel, H. & M. (1983). Gelede: Art and female power among the Yoruba. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

JanMohamed, A.R. (1983). Manichean aesthetics: The politics of literature in colonial Africa. Amherst, MA: University of

Massachusetts Press.

MacGaffey, W. (1983). Modern Kongo prophets. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Thornton, J. (1983). The kingdom of Kongo: Civil war and transition, 1641-1718. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Watts, M. (1983). Slient violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.


1983 - Committee: Ivan Karp, Ch. [Jean Borgatti]

Winner

Fernandez, J.W. (1982). Bwitti: An ethnography of the religious imagination in Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


1982 - Committee: Joel Samoff, Ch. [

Winner

Cooper, F. (1981). From slaves to squatters: Plantation labor and agriculture in Zanzibar and coastal Kenya, 1890-1925.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Scribner, S. & Cole, M. (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


1981 - Committee:

Winner

Kitching, G. (1980). Class and economic change in Kenya: The making of an African petite bourgeoisie, 1905-1970.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.


1980 - Committee:

Winner

Lee, R.B. (1979). The !Kung San. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.


1979 - Committee:

Winner

Alverson, H. (1978). Mind in the heart of darkness: Value and self-identity among the Tswana of southern Africa.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.


1978 - Committee:

Winner

Adams, W. Y. (1977). Nubia: Corridor to Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


1977 - Committee:

Winner

Young, M.C. (1976). Politics of cultural pluralism. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.


1976 - Committee - Samuel Decalo, Richard, Lobban, Janet Vaillant

Winner

Wilks, I. (1975). Asante in the nineteenth century : the structure and evolution of a political order. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Finalist

Curtin, P. (1975). Economic change in pre-colonial Africa. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.


1975 - Committee:

Winners

Kaba, L. (1974). The Wahhabiyya: Islamic reform and politics in French West Africa. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Skinner, E.P. (1974). African urban life: the transformation of Ouagadougou. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.


1974 - Committee:

Winner

Paden, J.N. (1973). Religion and political culture in Kano. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.


1973 - Committee:

Winner

Isaacman, A.F. (1972). Mozambique: The Africanization of a European institution; the Zambesi prazos, 1750-1902.

Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.


1972 - Committee:

Winner

Deng, F.M. (1971). Tradition and modernization; A challenge for law among the Dinka of the Sudan. New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press.


1971 - Committee:

Winner

Lemarchand, R. (1970). Rwanda and Burundi. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.


1970 - Committee:

Winner

Samkange, S. J. T.(1968/9). Origins of Rhodesia. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.


1969 - Committee:

Winner

Bohannan, P. & L. (1968). Tiv economy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.


1968 - Committee: Herbert Lewis, Ch. [James Diffy, Martin Kilson]

Winners

Weiss, H. (1967). Political protest in the Congo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Finalist

Morganthau, R (1967). Politics in French-speaking West Africa. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.


1967 - Committee:

Winner

Vansina, J. (1966). Kingdoms of the savanna. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.


1966 - Committee:

Winner

Kuper, L. (1965). An African bourgeoisie; race, class, and politics in South Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.


1965 - Committee:

Winner

Morgenthau, R.S. (1964). Political parties in French-speaking West Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.



* Bibliography *

Olden, A. & Marsh, S. S. (1990). An evaluation of the extent to which the holdings of four United States research libraries would have supported the writing of award-winning books on Africa. International Journal of
Information and Library Research
, 2/3: 177-193.
[Olden & Marsh compare the holding of 22 Herskovits Award-winning books at the University of Illinois,
Indiana University, Northwestern University, and Yale University.]



Awards for Books about Africa Homepage


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