New Books in African Studies

How has Yoweri Museveni remained in power for four decades – and what happens when he is gone? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Mesrob Vartavarian about three important books on Uganda and his argument that the country has become a "militarised family state". Their discussion explores whether Museveni's durability rests on coercion, patronage and political manipulation or negotiation with powerful social institutions; how far today's system reflects deeper patterns in Uganda's history – and whether a political order increasingly dependent on Museveni, his family and the military can survive him. Mesrob Vartavarian is an independent scholar based in the United States whose research focuses on democracy, authoritarianism, state formation, nationalism and political change, with a particular interest in Africa and the Middle East. Mesrob’s work examines how political orders are constructed and maintained, and the relationship between formal institutions, social structures and political power. His recent review essay, "Coercion, co-optation and kinship: Uganda's militarised family state" in the Journal of Modern African Studies, brings together three major studies of contemporary Uganda to examine the durability and transformation of Yoweri Museveni's rule. Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of CEDAR. The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham! Transcript here

American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora (NYU Press, 2026) by Dr. Heide Castañeda examines the complex identity negotiations of Amazigh people—also known as Berbers—as they build community and claim visibility in the American landscape. These distinct ethnic groups, whose histories predate the arrival of Arabs in North Africa, unsettle categories of race and ethnicity in the U.S., challenging dominant assumptions about what it means to be African, Indigenous, and Muslim. Their experiences also disrupt familiar immigration narratives, revealing the complexities and challenges of legal migration processes such as family reunification and the Diversity Immigrant Visa program. In seeking to make their struggles for recognition legible within the American context, Amazigh communities grapple with conditional belonging while also bearing the legacy of marginalization in their home countries, which is rooted in colonial divisions, postcolonial nationalism, and Arabization policies, fostering systemic discrimination. In the diaspora, Amazigh identity is being actively reshaped as individuals and organizations engage with new ideological frameworks, global Indigenous rights movements, and recent political gains in North Africa, where they have long fought for linguistic, cultural, and legal equality. The Indigenous perspective has been largely missing from the literature on migration. Drawing on four years of ethnographic research, and framed around the concept of diasporic indigeneity, the book explores how the Amazigh people forge new anchors of belonging and create spaces of social cohesion. By uncovering both the opportunities and challenges presented in the American context, the book moves beyond conventional migration narratives to illuminate how identity and belonging are continually translated and reconfigured within new places. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, hosts Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Farid Hafez to discuss his most recently published book Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present (Oxford UP, 2026). Hafez’s recent work centres on the comparative analysis of the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the German rule in Tanzania, Togo and Cameroon, and in particular their respective treatment of Muslims in each case to then in turn shed light on the current governing of Muslimness in both. Farid Hafez is an assistant professor in International Relations at William and Mary, and also a senior researcher at Georgetown University.

Moving beyond official diplomatic records and printed texts, Britain and the Ottoman Maghreb, 1662–1712: Merchants, Consuls, and Cultural Exchange (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Nat Cutter delves into thousands of personal letters and financial records, where we find friendship, conflict, adoration, derision, manipulation, and scandal across cultures and countries. In so doing, it offers new ways of thinking about British-Maghrebi relations in a transitional age for global trade and military-naval power, moving beyond plaintive consular complaints, gunboat diplomacy, and brutal captivity to accommodate positive cooperation and mutual benefit.

The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how the French state pursued a century-long project of bicultural Franco-Muslim education in its northwest African colonies, resulting in a new type of school, the médersa, that combined French and Islamic curricula. French officials frequently described these schools and their students as "hyphens," drawing connections between larger French and Islamic forces. Samuel D. Anderson highlights this hyphenating idea, situating Franco-Muslim education between beliefs about not only France and Islam but also about tradition and modernity and about North and West Africa. The médersa project had two goals: to create an elite class of Muslims friendly to the French imperial project and, subsequently, to mold Islam into a form that could be more easily controlled. A total of ten médersas opened across Algeria, Senegal, French Soudan, and Mauritania and closed only in the 1950s. The graduates of these schools, the medérsiens, went on to shape their societies profoundly but not always in the ways the French anticipated. Drawing on archival and oral sources from Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, and France, The French Médersa proposes new ways to approach trans-Saharan history. Anderson argues that across northwest Africa, and for more than a century, Franco-Muslim education was central to the history of the French empire and Islamic education alike. Samuel D. Anderson is history teacher at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. Madina Thiam is Fannie Gaston-Johansson Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University.