The end of independent chieftaincy must be one of the most fundamental changes in the long history of Ghana, and one of the central achievements that Kwame Nkrumah and his movement brought about. Nkrumah & the Chiefs examines a radical nationalist government's attempts to destroy chieftaincy in Ghana. Richard Rathbone's pioneering work shows how chiefly resistance forced the government to seek control over rural areas by incorporating and redefining chieftaincy. Based primarily on previously unconsulted archival and other material in Ghana, Nkrumah & the Chiefs is a detailed analysis of this neglected side of Ghana's history.

Colonial anthropology and historical reconstruction -- Drum chant and the political uses of tradition -- Tindanas and chiefs : ethnography -- Chiefs and tindanas : making 'nam' -- Tamale : the Dakpema, the Gulkpe'Na, the Bugulana, and the law of the land -- Chiefs in the national arena.

This volume provides a comprehensive and integrated analysis of contemporary Ghanaian politics and economy and their relationship to culture. It combines rich, recent, empirical material with sophisticated theoretical analyses, bringing fresh and unique interdisciplinary perspectives to bear on the issues examined.

This book tells the story of Kwame Nkrumah, the first post-colonial president of an independent African country. The book utilizes previously unpublished and recently declassified IS State Department documents to give an analysis and a chronology of Nkrumah's fall. The book is written for a general audience and for academic historians and students.

This book shows African heritage to be a mode of political organisation - where heritage work has a uniquely wide currency.

Through a broad range of case studies based on pioneering research, African Dress explores key themes of fashion, the body, performance and identity. It is the first scholarly yet accessible overview of African fashion and dress practices.

State Building in Boom Times argues that commodity booms and coalitional politics are central to understanding the state building variation within and across Latin America and Africa. It shows how resource booms can trigger the provision of new public goods and institutional strengthening and thus help countries expand their state capacity. But these possibilities hinge on coalitional politics, as seen through six cases. Countries ruled by export-oriented coalitions (Argentina, Chile, and Mauritius) expanded their state capacity as a direct result of commodity booms. But countries in which exporters were politically marginalized (Colombia, Ghana, and Nigeria) missed analogous state building opportunities because ruling coalitions preyed upon export wealth, rather than promoting export interests via state building. The coalitional basis of these divergent outcomes suggests that, contrary to the prevailing belief in a resource curse, natural resource wealth does not necessarily dispose countries to low state capacity. Instead, export-oriented coalitions can harness boom times for developmental gains, even in the context of weak institutions. This finding warrants reappraising some widespread presumptions about the relationship between resource wealth and state building, as well as the public policies that are commonly proposed for developing countries to manage their natural resource wealth.