Islam: A New History from Muhammad to The Present. John Tolan. Princeton University Press. 2025.

Islam’s beginnings and evolution 

What are the roots of Islam, and how has it been interpreted and practiced in different ways across time and place since its inception? Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present by John Tolan, surveys a wide range of defining historical episodes and movements from the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the 6^th century through to today. Tolan’s historicising approach focuses not only on events, but highlights the diverse contributions of caliphs, travellers, Sufi saints, merchants, and Islamic reformers in shaping Islamic societies across regions and eras.  

From the spiritual legacy of Rabia al-Adawiyya, the 8th-century Muslim saint, to contemporary interpretations of Islam, the tradition has continually transformed, adapted, and evolved since its inception. During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam remained unified under his direct guidance and the presence of his companions. However, the significant doctrinal and political developments emerged following his death in 632 CE. The first caliph was chosen by Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (632-634) and unifying the Arabian Peninsula and combating early waves of apostasy. The question of succession – specifically who would lead the Ummah (believers of Islam) – marked a decisive moment in Islamic history and led to the emergence of sectarianism such as Sunni and Shi’a. 

Tolan reveals how early political rivalries were transformed into lasting sectarian cleavages within the Islamic tradition.

Tolan draws attention to Nana Asmau, Uthman ibn Fodio’s daughter, a distinguished scholar, poet, Sufi, and reformer, who exercised significant intellectual and political influence during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the modern period, figures such as African American Imam Amina Wadud – who converted from Christianity to Islam – have continued this tradition of reinterpretation. In her work Qur’an and Woman (1999), Wadud argues that each generation of Muslims must retain the freedom to reread and reinterpret the Quran, underscoring Islam’s dynamic and evolving engagement with history, and society. Further, Tolan highlights how Muslim scholars, organisations, and leaders have politically mobilised Muslim communities across the world and their contribution of proliferations of Islam especially in the Middle East, the USA and Europe. He discusses figures from an Egyptian author Gamal al-Banna to the brother of Hassan al-Banna and from Malcolm X to Mahmud Muhammad Taha and Bilali Muhammad.  

The Quran and sectarianism

Tolan  episodic historical approach zones in on key events in Islam, particularly those surrounding the compilation of the Quran and the struggle for political authority after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. The Quran was first full text compiled in written form during the caliph of Uthman ibn Affan, a process that later became a source of sectarian controversy. Certain Shi’a scholars such as Ibn Abil Hadid and Yasir al-Habib have argued that portions of the original revelation were concealed, alleging that Ali ibn Abi Talib as the rightful successor were omitted, and that some Quranic materials were destroyed during the standardisation of the text. 

Tolan further situates these theological disputes within the larger political conflicts between emerging Sunni authorities and Shi’a factions during the Umayyad period, followed by the Abbasid era, when competing claims to the caliphate continued to shape Islamic governance. He demonstrates how the institution of the caliphate became a source of deep and enduring division within Islam. For instance, Tolan discusses accusations directed at Ali in relation to the assassination of Caliph Umar, including claims that Ali protected and facilitated the escape of the assassin, Piruz Nahavandi – a Persian captive taken during the Battle of Al-Qadisiyya (25). Through these episodes, Tolan reveals how early political rivalries were transformed into lasting sectarian cleavages within the Islamic tradition. 

Islam’s spread and divisions 

Initially, Islam expanded its dominance from Damascus (634 CE) to Antioch (637 CE) and Jerusalem (638 CE). By the time of Caliph Umar’s death in 644 CE, the Islamic empire spanned from Libya to Afghanistan and from Azerbaijan to Yemen. Later, Tolan briefly discusses the rise of Islam most continents of the world through battles, merchants, and Sufi’s spirituality. Tolan notes that how the first Fitna or civil war stated in the 7^th century in Islam which gave to rise new sectarian divisions such as Sunnis, Shi’a, and Kharijites. These sects started to practice Islam in their own ways. For instance, Shi’a believed that Ali was first Caliph of Umma and Sunnis believed Abu-Bakr, and some Muslim rulers imposed a Jizya (tax) on Christians, Jews, Jains, Buddhists and Hindus. 

Movements including Deobandi, Wahhabi, Ahmadiyya and Faraizi emerged that created identity-based segregation and emphasised strict adherence to the Quran and Hadith, rejecting some traditional practices among Muslims

Tolan highlights the significance of Ibn Battuta’s Rihla (1959) in understanding the global spread and lived diversity of Islam. Battuta’s travels from Mecca to Mali, India, Mauritius, and China – illustrate how Islam adapted cultures across regions. Serving as a qadi (a Muslim judge) in India under Muhammad bin Tughlaq and later as an envoy to China, Battuta offers detailed observations on governance, economy, and international relations. His vivid, experiential narrative enriches Islamic history, particularly through contributions such as his writing of hadith (corpus of sayings or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) in Arabic at the request of Muhammad ben Aydin, Sultan of Birki (Birkin) (125). 

Colonial influence and modern Islam 

In the chapter “Colonization and Its Discontents, 1798-1918,” Tolan traces the history of European colonisation in Muslim societies from the late 18th to the early 20th century. He examines how India came under the control of European powers such as the East India Company, the Portuguese, and the Dutch, who established colonial regimes across different regions. Tolan highlights how the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) employed Muslims to codify Islamic law in matters of inheritance, marriage, and divorce, at Masulipatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Malabar Coast (Kerala) Gujarat, and some part of Bengal, while the British East India Company similarly institutionalised Islamic (Sharia) law for Muslims in Bengal, Madras, Bombay presidencies and later all over India as part of its colonial governance strategy (168).  

Movements including Deobandi, Wahhabi, Ahmadiyya and Faraizi emerged that created identity-based segregation and emphasised strict adherence to the Quran and Hadith, rejecting some traditional practices among Muslims. For instance, the Deobandi Movement founded in 1866, went against modern western education and promoted traditional studies (Quran, Hadith, Fiqh). Contrastingly, Sir Syed Ahmad founded Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875, to modernise education with Islamic values. Later, these movements spread not only across the Indian subcontinent but also to the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.   

Overall, Tolan’s book is a comprehensive account of key Islamic events and historical developments; however, some of his arguments are insufficiently substantiated. For instance, the claim that Shi’a Muslims believed that Ayesha (wife of Muhammad) concealed Quranic verses proving Ali’s rightful succession is presented with limited evidentiary support. The book also overlooks the significant role of Sufi traditions in the spread of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, particularly the contributions of key figures. Nonetheless, Tolan’s work offers a broad historical perspective on Islam’s evolution, transformation, and the emergence of diverse sects across regions. The book focuses primarily on political events in Islamic history and their role in the making and unmaking of Islam. In so doing, it makes a meaningful contribution for Islamic scholars, academicians and individuals to understand the evolution of Islam from Muhammad to present.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s. Jason Burke. The Bodley Head. 2025.

Anna D’Alton (AD): In your book, The Revolutionists, you focus on a period of political violence between 1967 and ‘83, wherein a new transnational terrorism emerged. What did that involve, and what factors created it?

Jason Burke (JB): I look at a wave of violence in the 1970s which saw extremists using transnational terrorist violence as a weapon in a new way. There had been transnational attacks before, but this was quantitatively and qualitatively different: there were many more attacks involving a much wider range of both targets and perpetrators than ever before. These were designed to be spectacular or attention-grabbing in a way that struck me as new, too. A high-profile example I look at in the book is the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

One cause of this wave of violence is the emergence of new media technology that its perpetrators wanted to exploit to raise the profile of their various grievances. Another factor is the new strategic terrain of contemporary aviation and its infrastructure which enabled numerous airplane hijackings. And you also have a very important moment of global agitation and protest in the late 1960s in support of so-called revolutionary causes. It’s this that generates the political energy that underlies the violence of the ‘70s and a very internationalised vision of revolutionary activism.

The book is about individuals, and what brings a person to use (often lethal) violence, their motivations and the circumstances that might direct them towards that kind of activity

But at around the same time in the Middle East, you have the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War in 1967 and the broad changes geopolitically, socially and politically that followed it. Israel’s victory and its repercussions pushed Palestinian armed groups towards a new strategy. All of this comes together and generates the wave of transnational political violence that you see from the late ‘60s through to the mid ‘70s.

AD: Why do you think it’s worthwhile to understand not just the attacks, which encompass hijackings and bombings and other types of violence, but the people behind them and their motivations? I’m interested as well in your use of the term “revolutionists”.

JB: The term “revolutionist”, popularised in the 19th century, refers to people whose profession is effectively attempting to foment a revolution. Importantly, it is neither “revolutionaries” nor “terrorists”, both of which wouldn’t have been acceptable as a title of the book. To use either would be to take an immediate political stance, which I did not think would be helpful.

The book is about individuals, and what brings a person to use (often lethal) violence, their motivations and the circumstances that might direct them towards that kind of activity, and the personal consequences, positive and negative, that follow. More broadly, it’s about how political and religious movements looking to effect change generate extremist fringes that see violence as the only useful tactic, and how that can play out historically.

The characters are also fascinating in their own right. They’re complex individuals who act out of multiple motives. I in no way sympathise with them, but I have attempted to render them as human beings with the complexity we all have. I think that approach makes it much easier to understand what happened in specific events, and to understand the events of that period more broadly.

AD: You look at the solidarity that was built internationally across different causes, from the liberation of Palestine to Vietnam’s struggle against the US, and multiple anti-imperialist causes. Did they manage to build solidarity?

JB: There was plenty of rhetorical and aspirational solidarity. There was a strong sense of solidarity between Western European leftists and the Viet Cong, or earlier with the Algerians and their fight against the French, or later, with those fighting on the ground against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and of course, with the Palestinians. European radicals genuinely believed that they could help bring about a global revolution that would end the twin scourges of imperialism and capitalism through their support of causes in the Global South.

One of the reasons I wrote the book was to consider the trajectories of the leftist radical movement alongside that of the Islamist movement in the same period.

In practical terms, it was difficult to instrumentalise that solidarity. You had organisations with divergent agendas, ways of working and cultural approaches, which led to misunderstandings, arguments and few examples of successful collaboration.

AD: In the second half of the book, you look at the rise of Islamic extremism, and you argue there was a failure in the revolutionary leftist movement, a vacuum that Islamism stepped into.

JB: One of the reasons I wrote the book was to consider the trajectories of the leftist radical movement alongside that of the Islamist movement in the same period. The ‘70s saw the resurgence of faith-based political ideologies across the Islamic world. The key moments for modern political Islamism and its extremist variants, I argue, are in the mid- to late 60s, which aligns with that moment of global revolutionary mobilisation, activism and protest.

By the mid-70s in the West, that wave of mobilisation had receded. Some people were repelled by some of the violence that it entailed, others had just moved on or redirected their political energies into other, narrower, identity-based causes such as environmentalism or the anti-nuclear movement. Also, in the West, you’d had a lot of reform. The movement of the late ‘60s had achieved many of its aims, at least in social and cultural terms. It had gained better reproductive rights for women, lowered voting ages, secured better funding for universities and successfully challenged post-war political hierarchies. There was much less reason to protest by the end of the decade.

Iran is back in the news these days. People forget that the Left in Iran was a real force for a long time before it was crushed by Iranian authorities.

But in the Middle East, there were no such gains. Any left-wing radicalism was ruthlessly repressed. The material circumstances that so many people wanted to change remained the same. So, there was inevitably a vacuum, and that meant a different revolutionary programme – with different ideas and vocabulary – that diverged from the Left in some areas. But it was still, at heart, a programme of transformation of society, culture and much else towards an imagined utopia.

Iran is back in the news these days. People forget that the Left in Iran was a real force for a long time before it was crushed by Iranian authorities. In the ‘70s, the main armed violent opposition groups that targeted the Shah’s regime were on the Left. By 1980, they were all in prison or exiled or dead, leaving a massive vacuum that greatly aided the radical clerics to take power.

AD: That example of Iran and Shah Khomeini coming to power, and many of the events you explore in the book are seismic moments, and it feels like we’re still seeing the effects of them play out today. You see it in counterterror policy and US relations with so many Arab countries.

JB: As I researched, I was astonished by how much of the politics we see today has its roots in this period in the ‘70s. You see it the current situation in Iran, and in Sunni jihadi activism – Bin Laden was a child of the 70s. He was 13 in 1970, his formative experiences were during that decade. You see it in the role of states like Syria in the region, or indeed Israel, and the rise of the Right there during that period.

The events of the ‘70s and early ‘80s fomented a new understanding of terrorism. Rejecting that which had been prevalent earlier in the decade which described terrorism as a criminal activity, effectively, with social and political and other root causes, this new framing which saw terrorism as a cancer that could be cut out. And it viewed terrorists as mad, bad or misled, but certainly not acting out of an authentic desire to change their and other people’s circumstances.

AD: It’s interesting to consider that reframing in light of the recent decision from the UK’s High Court to overturn the Government’s proscription (in 2025) of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Yes it is. The definition of terrorism and application of the noun “terrorists” – which I don’t use at any point in the book, deliberately – is hugely politicised. You very rapidly run out of fingers if you want to start counting governments, democratically elected or otherwise, that have described their enemies as terrorists.

There are technical definitions of terrorism, including under UK law. In the case of Palestine Action, it seems very difficult to argue that their actions, their activities meet the standard or broadly accepted definitions of terrorism. And it seems to me to be highly politicised and counterproductive to characterise them in that way.

Note: This interview gives the views of the person interviewed and the interviewer, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Worlding Home: An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Camps in Goma, DRC. Maren Larsen. Indiana University Press. 2025.

Peacekeeping camps as active processes

Looking behind the walls of a peacekeeping camp – breaking down the physical and conceptual barriers and tracing the many flows and leakages between the camp and the city – is profoundly revealing. In Worlding Home, Maren Larsen offers an intimate and sharply observed account of the embeddedness of United Nations’ peacekeeping camps within both the urban fabric of Goma and the wider global network of humanitarian and military intervention. Peacekeeping camps are the sites where the personnel of a UN mission live and work while stationed in a conflict zone. Focused on the military branch of UN peace operations, Larsen’s ethnography demonstrates that such camp is never a sealed island; rather, it is a porous, eventful, and continuously transforming – improved and “beautified” – space within the city.

The book elegantly weaves together three interconnected geographies: the peacekeeping camp itself, the peacekeepers’ place(s) of origin, and the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, where peacekeepers are stationed as part of the UN mission. By moving between these sites, with a focus on the camp, Larsen shows how spatial practices, routine actions and moments, inside and outside the camp co-constitute an urbanism shaped by the logics of “camping”. The camp emerges not as static or exceptional, but as a multi-layered process: the camp keeps changing. Through fine-grained analysis, the book provides the reader with insights into how peacekeepers dwell, how they become embedded in local rhythms while maintaining deep connections to places elsewhere, and how their presence reshapes the urban life they are part of.

An interdisciplinary lens on peacekeeping 

Traditionally, peacekeeping has been the subject of political sciences and international relations, mostly focused on questions of effectiveness and driven by a security lens. Running parallel to this scholarship is a vibrant body of anthropological, sociological, and urban scholarship that interrogates humanitarianism, the international aid industry and infrastructure, and everyday practices of interveners. Within this interdisciplinary landscape, studies of camps – refugee and IDP camps, transit sites, or labour compounds, have been central in illuminating the spatial politics and materiality of encampment. Larsen draws from and contributes to this rich lineage. At the same time, Worlding Home builds upon a long-standing, rich body of research on Goma, a city shaped by decades of humanitarian presence, conflict, and displacement. The book, in line with prior literature, acknowledges Goma as both a humanitarian hub and an epicentre of emergencies that have generated successive layers of encampment, from colonial camps to the massive influx of refugees in the 1990s to the contemporary UN bases. 

Peacekeeping camps constitute active, evolving processes that blur boundaries between dwelling and mobility, as well as between ‘here’ and ‘there’

Mindful of this urban palimpsest of camping, Larsen situates the peacekeeping camp as part of a longer historical and spatial continuum in Goma. From a recent vantage point, she guides the reader through different moves, from outside the camp, to the camp’s fringes and through the gates, inside the camp, to everyday routines and practices, and beyond into global circuits of mobility of people, practices, flavours, and music. Through these movements, Larsen demonstrates that UN camps are neither isolated enclaves nor entirely exceptional spaces. Instead, building on scholarship that conceptualises camps as dynamic social formations, she argues that peacekeeping camps constitute active, evolving processes that blur boundaries between dwelling and mobility, as well as between “here” and “there.” 

A further strength of Worlding Home is its vivid portrayal of the interactions that produce hybrid forms of urbanity. Military peacekeepers in Goma (from places as far away as India, Bangladesh, South Africa, or Uruguay) and Congolese civilians (including children, contractors, or local friends and intimate partners) form both deep and fleeting connections. Larsen details the festivities, the importance of food and eating, the linguistic abilities of kids lingering around the camps (some learn to speak the language of the resident military contingent), and the routines of military culture, both inside the camp and their interaction with the world outside the camp. These scenes illustrate how camps function both as global nodes of UN intervention and as everyday domestic spaces. Indeed, “camping” as practice involves varied interactions that reshape socio-spatial relations, offering new understandings of home-making, global mobility, and urban development under conditions of humanitarian intervention. 

Dilemmas of peace operations 

The book also addresses some of the most pressing dilemmas facing contemporary peace operations: sustainability, blurred lines between humanitarian and military roles, civil-military tensions, and instances of abuse of power. Larsen engages these issues not abstractly but through grounded, often moving ethnographic vignettes. These moments remind the reader that peacekeeping is lived and experienced by individuals navigating complex moral terrains. 

The reader comes away understanding the peacekeepers’ camp as deeply entangled in the life of Goma: a space of global circulation, local negotiation, and everyday improvisation.

Larsen’s focus on the military branch of peace operations is justified and analytically productive, but this choice does narrow the aperture of inquiry. Civilian staff, local NGOs, and the city’s broader population play crucial roles in shaping the social and spatial dynamics of UN bases. Those actors live with chronic insecurity and multi-faceted urban violence. Urban dwellers’ perspectives and place-making in, and with, the camp(s) occasionally appear but are not explored with the same depth as those of uniformed peacekeepers. How, for example, do the many contractors, visitors, camps’ neighbours, and informal workers, shape the camp, and what is their share in “camping”? As a result, the portrayal of Goma sometimes leans more toward an ethnography of camps in a city rather than an ethnography of the city with camps, including its long-term urban, environmental, social, cultural, and economic consequences. Readers may find themselves wanting more sustained engagement with the urban residents whose daily lives intersect with, support, challenge, or adapt to the presence of peacekeeping infrastructures. 

Peacekeeping camps’ place in the world 

This desire for more in no way diminishes the book’s accomplishment. Worlding Home offers an invaluable perspective on what peacekeeping camps are and what they do in the world. It shows that the peacekeeping camp is not merely a site but a process – what Larsen aptly calls “eventful happenings” – embedded within urban space. The book illuminates these processes with nuance, empathy, and theoretical sophistication. 

In the end, the reader comes away understanding the peacekeepers’ camp as deeply entangled in the life of Goma: a space of global circulation, local negotiation, and everyday improvisation. Worlding Home stands as a perceptive and timely contribution to the study of peace operations in an urban context and the anthropology of encampment. It invites us to rethink what it means to make a home – however temporary – amid intervention, and what it means for a city to continually absorb, reshape, and respond to the demands of those who camp within it.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Cameroon War: A History of French Neocolonialism in Africa by Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue and Jacob Tatsitsa. Translated from the French by David Broder. Verso. 2025.

Cameroon’s transition to independence in France in 1960 was preceded by a strong resistance movement starting from 1955. To prevent new losses after Indochina and the Algerian war, France waged a secret war on Cameroon lasting until 1964, and then installed a neocolonial authoritarian system tied to the French Presidency which still holds sway today. The Cameroon War by Cameroonian historian Jacob Tatsista, and two French journalists, Thomas Deltombe and Manuel Domergue, was originally published in French in 2011 as an 800-page volume and has now appeared in English. David Broder’s translation of the second, shortened, 2016 edition is updated with new archival materials from Britain. It constitutes a valuable contribution to the scholarship through its focus on this suppressed piece of history and the origins of contemporary French neocolonial policies.

Cameroon’s colonial history 

Cameroon was a German colony from 1884 to 1916. After the First World War, Cameroon – like Palestine and Rwanda among others – it came under a League of Nations Mandate. The larger part was governed by the French, a smaller by the British. Mandate status and, after 1945, the United Nations trusteeship, implied indeterminacy of sovereignty: what the authors deem an “unsolvable colonial equation” and show how it was exploited by colonial powers and local movements alike.

As the authors turn to the Cameroonian independence movement (1948 to1955), they describe how, in 1948, the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC) came together under the leadership of Ruben Um Nyobe who mobilised strong support across the population (43). The UPC petitioned the UN directly, calling on colonial powers to deliver “full autonomy and independence” (48). In response, France established alternative political parties led by Franco-Cameroonian elites who appropriated UPC demands, intercepted UPC communications, machine-gunned UPC-led strikes in Douala, and prevented UN visitors from interacting with militants directly. Ultimately France succeeded in convincing the UN to ban the UPC in 1955 (68). Denied legitimate political recourse, the UPC turned to armed action known as maquis (guerillas) (74). While earlier accounts on UPC nationalism have focused on Bassa and Bamileke groups, the authors bring additional archival research and oral histories to weave a broader argument about the UPC’s struggle.

Forging independence after 1955 

The next two chapters detail France’s violent warfare against the maquis in 1955 to 1958, followed by French-orchestrated independence in 1959 to 1960. It is in these chapters that two key strengths of the book lie. The broader geopolitical situation of the time was unfavourable to the French empire which had lost the war in Indochina and struggled in Algeria. Ending the Cameroonian insurgency and staging its independence became key to sustaining French imperial power. Making brief reference to British suppression of Mau Mau and Kikuyu in Kenya, the authors meticulously detail how the French established “pacification zones”, deported entire populations to resettlement camps, burnt territories from planes, used rape, torture and public executions, and ultimately killed Um Nyobe.

In parallel, they prepared for independence on French terms, choosing Ahmadou Ahidjo to sign an independence agreement “promoting Franco-Cameroonian friendship” in January 1960. The Cameroonian constitution was modelled on that of the French Fifth Republic, bestowing quasi-dictatorial power on Ahidjo and ceding Cameroon’s defence, diplomacy and currency to France (95). In November 1960, additional bilateral agreements on Franco-Cameroonian development “cooperation” and “technical assistance” ensured ongoing restrictions on Cameroonian sovereignty (128). The book not only presents previously undocumented evidence; it outlines how many of these agreements remain “secret” to this day, including those granting France exclusive rights to exploit mineral resources for 60 to 80 years.

French ‘controlled massacres’ and psychological warfare continued under the guise of training manoeuvres and were normalised across Cameroon for fear unrest might spread. 

The transition from the colonial to a neocolonial system allowed France, acting behind the official Cameroonian army, to keep the war hidden. The authors distinguish themselves from other accounts, to argue that French military action should be denominated as a war waged against Cameroon; they do so by documenting, revealing and comparing French strategies here to those used in Algeria and Indochina. Under the leadership of veterans from Indochina and Algeria, UPC strongholds in the Anglophone Bamileke and Mungo regions were bombed and 21,000 people killed (118). The rest of the population was re-settled in camps for ‘re-education’ through torture. These events were little reported at the time, and if they were, it was in terms of an internal “ethnic war” (119).

French “controlled massacres” and psychological warfare continued under the guise of training manoeuvres (138) and were normalised across Cameroon for fear unrest might spread. In 1962 the temporary state of emergency was made permanent, creating an “administration of terror” where torture became a means of “governing the population” (143). During 1955 to1971, around 100,000 people were killed; “Politics became a sham and a petrified Cameroonian people took refuge in silence” (145).

Françafrique, or neocolonial rule, continued?

The book closes with its second major contribution: a description of the system of neocolonial governance known as Françafrique: a “unique system of neocolonial governance that enables a tiny number of French officials, in collusion with a handful of African leaders, to control remotely and at low cost […] peoples who remain prisoners of a system that ensures their continued domination by the old colonial power” (134). While documented in French, this is its first introduction to broader English-speaking audiences. The system, developed in Cameroon and replicated elsewhere, entailed armies built on the counter-insurgency model, secret services trained by their French counterparts, and French technical assistance which severely restricted sovereignty. Françafrique relies on control of African affairs directly by the French presidency, a situation that still holds today.

In 1982, Ahidjo was replaced by another disciple of France, Paul Biya. The reason for this change is disputed, but points to a leftward shift in French politics, and to the role of the French oil company, Elf. One wishes that the authors had investigated the so-called Elf Scandal more thoroughly. The authors move rather quickly through the years of Biya’s violent rule, highlighting continuities with Ahidjo’s autocratic regime, including the military suppression of cost-of-living protests in 2008, a renewed military pact with France against Boko Haram in 2014 and, since 2018, armed conflict with colonial roots in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

The book’s core contributions lie in its comparative study of French war strategies, the extensive, detailed evidence about the war, and the foundation of the intricate neocolonial system known as Francafrique.

In 2009, Prime Minster Francois Fillon publicly denied French involvement, but in 2015, President Francois Hollande announced that the history books would be reopened. Yet a commission was only appointed by the Macron presidency in 2023, led by French historian Karine Ramondy. Analysing its 2025 report, Thomas Deltombe characterised the commission as “diplomatic and communicational,” more than scholarly, revealing little that was new. These chapters would have benefited from more extensive and sustained analysis, given the authors’ intimate knowledge of French political history.

Overall, this detailed history speaks to the extreme violence of a long-silenced war in Cameroon. Written in an accessible manner, though in rather militant language that perhaps inadvertently echoes the UPC tone, the book will be of interest to those interested in French neocolonialism, geopolitics and comparative studies on independence and nationalist movements. The book’s core contributions lie in its comparative study of French war strategies, the extensive, detailed evidence about the war, and the foundation of the intricate neocolonial system known as Francafrique.

During the presidential election on 12 October 2025, many Cameroonians stayed home, sought refuge in rural areas or left the country rather than exercise their right to vote. They feared terror at the hands of the administration. Two weeks later, Paul Biya was “re-elected” – this was presented in the French and international press as a matter of dysfunctional internal politics. What Tatsitsa, Deltombe and Domergue point to is the violent colonial events that contextualise Biya becoming the world’s longest serving head of state. Seventy-five years after the hidden war on Cameroon, Biya’s recent return to power reveals that, despite major geopolitical changes with Chinese and Russians and the withdrawal of French armies in the region, Françafrique is far from gone.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Theresa Squatrito will present on the book at an LSE Research Showcase on Tuesday 17 February, Can international courts judge without political constraint? Find details and register.

Judging under Constraint: The Politics of Deference by International Courts. Theresa Squatrito. Cambridge University Press. 2025.

Anna D’Alton (AD): Firstly, how many International Courts (ICs) are there, what sort of functions do they have, and how is it decided which countries are in the jurisdiction of a certain court? 

Theresa Squatrito (TS): There are currently 25 permanent ICs, spanning the globe. Some of them have a much smaller jurisdiction in terms of what states they cover, and some are near global in coverage. 

For all of them, a member state decides whether they’re part of the jurisdiction, and sometimes this is connected to membership of an international organisation. For example, the EU has a court attached to it, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the choice to be included in its jurisdiction is a question of whether you’re a member of the EU. To take another example, the African Court of Human and People’s Rights (ACtHPR) is attached to the African Union (AU), but not all members of the AU (and so, not all countries on the continent of Africa), fall within the jurisdiction of the court, because states have to take an extra decision to opt in. So, it depends on the court, but there’s always a step at which a state chooses to become a member. 

AD: In the book you highlight that ICs differ from other international organisations in that they serve their functions through decisions only. How does this work? 

TS: It’s an important distinction. An international organisation like the UN has processes of making decisions, like through UN Security Council resolutions. But a lot of what the UN also does is service provision: there are UN agencies worldwide helping to provide food aid, crisis relief, technical assistance and so on. The World Bank, for example, take decisions on granting loans, but a big part of what it does is gather data. The World Bank gathers and publishes some of the best data we have on development. 

Courts are distinct because the only sort of activity they engage in decision making, bar some exceptions, like when international criminal tribunals conduct investigations or how some courts monitor the execution of their decisions.  

AD: You argue that the centrality of decision making for ICs warrants research into how courts come to decisions. You focus on judicial deference. What is deference? 

TS: Deference is an idea that isn’t confined to courts. You could have an executive defer to a legislature, or a legislature defer to an executive. Or your mother could defer to your father on a question (“go ask your father”). Deference is a process of accepting another person’s authority or position on a matter. In that example of the family, the mother abstains from making the decision and tells the child, I’m going to accept your father’s position on this. 

If an International Court defers, it either abstains from making a decision, and so accepts the position of the state’s national government, or it actively validates that state’s decision.  

That’s in essence what I’m looking at: whether or not the IC is deferring to the states on an exercise of authority they’ve engaged in. In other words, is the court abstaining from making a decision, or does it validate what the state has said? If an IC defers, it either abstains from making a decision, and so accepts the position of the state’s national government, or it actively validates that state’s decision.  

AD: You claim that the amount of “strategic space” an IC has influences how likely it is to defer. What is a court’s strategic space? 

TS: The strategic space is the range of possible decisions that the court could make that would be acceptable to the state. If the court steps outside that strategic space, then it’s taking a decision that the state will potentially object to, and perhaps try to override, or worse, punish the court for. A court’s strategic space can be broader or narrower, and that depends, I argue, on two main things. 

The first is how like-minded or divergent member states’ preferences are on a given issue. More divergence among member states means that those states will have a harder time overriding the court: if they view things very differently, it becomes difficult for them to agree on what that override would be. The second factor is how independent the court is or not: how vulnerable a court is to states restricting its authority, restricting its budget or trying to punish its judges. The more opportunities states have to do that, depending on the rules of the institution, the more vulnerable the court becomes, and that can limit its strategic space.

AD: What did you discover about tendencies to defer in your three case studies, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), and the ACtHPR? 

TS: I found that the broader the strategic space, the less likely a court is to defer. The range of decisions they can make is wider because that strategic space is more permissive. Within the law, there is always reasonable room for interpretation. Courts that have broader strategic space are more inclined towards interpretations and remedies that are more intrusive on state sovereignty. They may ask a state to provide compensation, to expunge a person’s criminal record, to reform a certain law, or they could find a state in violation of the law.

I was interested in what sorts of potential impacts a court being in the developing world has on its functioning

With the three case studies I examined, the EACJ has a narrower strategic space, so by the reasoning I’ve outlined, I thought it would be the most likely to defer. I looked at all the judgments from the court over about a 15-year period and found that this bore out: the EACJ is the most deferential of the three. On the opposite end, the ACtHPR has the broadest strategic space, and I found that it was the least deferential, meaning it was the most inclined towards finding states in violation of the law and telling them they must provide victims with some relief. 

AD: The three ICs you looked at are all in the Global South, and they are also newer courts. Why did you focus on these three, and how does the newness of a court figure in its decision making? 

TS: I took a few things into consideration when I was choosing them. One element was methodological: because I was interested in the influence of formal independence, I wanted each court to be different along that dimension. But I was also interested in courts in the Global South that are less studied. Those that have been studied the most by scholars are the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) the CJEU and the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body (its dispute settlement mechanism) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The courts I chose are newer, which is part of the reason they are less researched. I was interested in what sorts of potential impacts a court being in the developing world has on its functioning. Being in the Global South, and being newer institutions, means that people might have less access to the courts and there might be different relationships with, for example, the rule of law, compared to courts based in the Global North.  

AD: In our current moment of declining multilateralism and a recalibrating international order, what power do ICs have, and are there any trends you’re seeing across them? 

TS: ICs are a venue where states and private actors can go to seek answers to some major questions and problems. Sometimes this stems from a social pressure and public salience to bring an issue to the fore. To take some high-profile examples, South Africa has brought a case against Israel for alleged violations of the convention against genocide in Gaza before the ICJ, a case which has been supported by several other states. The ICJ and all the regional human rights courts have been asked to weigh in on issues around climate change, sparked in part by social mobilisation. And the CJEU is weighing in on the outsized power of Big Tech with the case of (Google’s parent company) found to be wrongfully pushing Google onto Android users in a way that violated fair competition. in a way that violated fair competition. 

Having these cases heard in ICs matters because these institutions carry a certain gravitas: we’re inclined to look on their authority and decisions as having a social power, and even hearing a case gives that case a real social legitimacy. For this reason, it’s important for us to understand how these courts arrive at their decisions on such key issues and what political factors affect the international judiciary.

Note: This interview gives the views of the person interviewed and the interviewer, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Register for the upcoming LSE Research Showcase with Theresa Squatrito, Can international courts judge without political constraint?

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Seeing is Disbelieving: Why People Believe Misinformation in War, and When They Know Better. Daniel Silverman. Cambridge University Press. 2024.

When making political judgements, citizens must confront an array of false or inaccurate information held or spread intentionally (disinformation) or unintentionally (misinformation). Such information, if not filtered out as false, informs how we evaluate everything from political candidates to climate change. Misinformation can even foment violence. As such, academics from a range of disciplines have recently examined the power of misinformation and considered ways to reduce its influence across countries ranging from India to the United States. They have studied misinformation about topics as diverse as vigilante violence against minorities, health care, climate change, and science denialism more broadly. 

Misinformation in conflict contexts 

Despite the burgeoning research into the topic of misinformation broadly, there is strikingly little work on misinformation in conflict contexts. In Seeing is Disbelieving: Why People Believe Misinformation in War, and When They Know Better, Daniel Silverman makes an important contribution to our understanding of people’s beliefs amidst war. In doing so, he also contributes to a vibrant literature on civilian attitudes in and about war. Regular people’s beliefs in factual inaccuracies about the war matter, he argues, because these beliefs likely play a role in larger conflict processes and outcomes. Silverman focuses on inaccuracies about civilian targeting; a wealth of evidence indicates that indiscriminate civilian targeting can drive civilians to support the opponents of the perpetrator (see, for example, Kocher et al. 2011 and Lyall et al. 2013). 

Beliefs in factual inaccuracies depend on, first, whether people have firsthand or local information about the relevant events and, second, whether they have incentives to seek accurate information

In this book, Silverman argues that beliefs in factual inaccuracies depend on, first, whether people have firsthand or local information about the relevant events and, second, whether they have incentives to seek accurate information. Individuals that live near violence have local knowledge, and they seek accurate information because their lives may depend on it. In contrast, people far removed from the violence have only information from partisan media, and they do not need accurate information so instead rely on directional motivated reasoning. Silverman therefore hypothesises that, compared to individuals living close to violence, those living at a remove from conflict will hold more inaccurate beliefs and be more vulnerable to believing misinformation.  

A mixed-methods approach 

Silverman uses a creative mixed-method approach to test this argument. First, drawing on Pew surveys fielded between 2009 and 2012, he finds that concerns about how discriminate US drone strikes are shape opposition to that drone campaign. Second, drawing on work with Kaltenthaler and Dagher (2021), Silverman analyses an original survey of Iraqis to examine their agreement with factual misperceptions about Coalition airstrikes. He finds that Iraqis who have lived in areas close to the violence are less likely to agree with the incorrect claims. Further, the effects of prior attitudes toward the US on belief in misperceptions are more limited among those who have been exposed to the violence. Finally, using data from 179 semi-structured interviews with Syrian refugees living in Turkey – collected by Schon (2020) – Silverman finds that individuals are more likely to believe that they are able to discern true from false information when they have been more exposed to conflict. Silverman also briefly explores some qualitative information from the interviews which demonstrates that proximity to conflict events was crucial for many people’s development of a clear understanding of the war.  

Self-reported truth discernment cannot necessarily measure agreement with misinformation

The book uses data from three different countries, lending credence to the generalisability of the argument. However, while the chapter on Iraq (chapter four) contains a careful experiment which directly tests the larger argument of the book, it isn’t clear how the sections on Pakistan (chapter three) and Syria (chapter five) test the key theory. Chapter three shows that concerns about civilian harm shape support for US drone strikes, and drone strikes themselves shape attitudes toward a range of political actors; these findings don’t directly concern misinformation. Chapter five focuses on people’s confidence in their ability to differentiate true from false information. But presumably people who believe untrue information also believe that they are capable of discerning the truth; indeed, there is some evidence that people who believe they can “do their own research” are also more likely to agree with falsehoods. As such, self-reported truth discernment cannot necessarily measure agreement with misinformation.   

Challenges for research in a conflict zone 

Conducting quantitative political opinion research in conflict zones is quite difficult, sometimes necessitating the use of imperfect measures like those discussed above. Given such challenges, the book would have been greatly enriched by more extensive qualitative work entailing language skills, fieldwork, and/or text analysis. For example, in the discussions of war-related misinformation in Pakistan (Chapter three) and Iraq (Chapter four), there seem to be no direct citations from the sources promoting the misinformation or even news stories in Urdu, Arabic, or Kurdish. Non-experts in the region would have benefitted from a much more developed discussion of the relevant misinformation.  

Readers would also stand to benefit from qualitative insights developed in interviews or focus groups conducted by the author on the precise topic of the book. Conversations about, for example, where people receive their information from and who they choose or choose not to believe, would be profoundly informative. Silverman suggests toward the end of the book that the next step in this research agenda is a more in-depth exploration of the role of cognition and psychology in susceptibility to wartime misinformation, but it seems as though interviews or focus groups could have helped further this precise research agenda. 

Those criticisms aside, I recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding misinformation or civilian attitudes in conflict. As media continues to fracture, misinformation will play an ongoing role in politics around the world; this book helps us understand some of the factors that lead people to believe it.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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War in Syria and the Middle East: A Political and Economic History. Federico Manfredi Firmian. University of Texas Press. 2025.

Federico Manfredi Firmian’s War in Syria and the Middle East: A Political and Economic History examines the key role of ideology in the broader political trajectory of the Middle East, using the Syrian case, whose rebirth we are witnessing today. The book traces Syria’s socio-political transformations from the Ottoman period to the colonial interventionism, from the ideological divides of the Cold War to the Arab Spring, from more than a decade of civil war to the present moment. The book engages both the history and the region’s turbulent political environment as a dynamic process shaped by competing ideologies. Accordingly, Firmian examines the Syrian case not merely as a post-2011 phenomenon, but within a longue durée perspective. 

From imperial rule to Pan-Arab socialism 

In the first chapter, Firmian introduces the historical trajectory of the Ottoman encounter with European capitalism and the subsequent imperial reorganisation of the Levant. This chapter’s emphasis on imperial legacy underlines the importance of history as a vital tool to understand the current trajectory of the region, demonstrating how the European penetration of the Ottoman economy in the 19th century and the violent Anglo-French reorganisation of the Levant after WW1 set the stage for the deep-seated polarisation and long-term conflicts persisting to this day. The proceeding chapters trace the ideological landscape of the region after the end of World War Two. Firmian argues that in the wake of European imperialism, the region sought viable alternatives to global capitalism, crystallising around Pan-Arab socialism and various strands of political Islam. The chapter details Pan-Arabism’s initial ascendance, exemplified by the Ba’th Party’s rise as a revolutionary, anti-imperialist force, followed by its ultimate failure, and the centralised dictatorships and profound socioeconomic setbacks it produced. These set the stage for subsequent cycles of conflict and the rise of other competing ideologies. 

Post-Cold-War power shifts 

Firmian then examines the post-Cold War context, analysing how the collapse of the Soviet Union created a vacuum that accelerated the region’s integration into the global capitalist order. He illustrates how Baʿthist regimes, notably Syria’s, abandoned socialist economics in favour of a crony, authoritarian form of capitalism, directly sowing the seeds of popular discontent. Simultaneously, the chapter traces the rise of political Islam, which positioned itself as the sole viable ideological opposition to both Western economic dominance and local despotic regimes.  

The Arab Spring was society’s profound rejection of the crony capitalism and authoritarianism that had failed to deliver on its promise of a fairer social order. Examining this in Chapter Four, Firmian draws connections between prolonged drought, resource mismanagement, and mass internal displacement, linking environmental stress to social fragmentation and the subsequent civil war in Syria. Chapter Five looks at the war itself, charting the disintegration of state authority, the rise of extremist groups, and the full internationalisation of the Syrian War. Firmian frames the proxy conflict between the US, its allies and the Russia-Iran axis as a modern iteration of the Cold War struggle between competing worldviews. The analysis is particularly astute in distinguishing between the ideological motivations of local militias and the geopolitical interests of their external backers, asserting that the battle for Syria became a contest over the future model of state governance in the region.  

The battle for Syria became a contest over the future model of state governance in the region.  

The book then moves to examining the post-major-conflict landscape: the solidification of territorial control, the tragic humanitarian crisis, and the failure of international justice. Firmian chronicles the Assad regime’s partial victory through extreme brutality and external backing primarily provided by Russia and Iran. He concludes that Syria remains “shattered” despite the cessation of major front-line fighting, citing economic collapse and the refugee crisis.  

Non-ideological factors shaping the Middle East

The book’s chapters and conclusion argue that the conflicts across the Middle East are not random events, but the predictable, tragic outcome of a two-century struggle between global capitalism and the countering ideologies that have sought to provide an alternative vision for the region. Firmian successfully synthesises the historical, economic, and political threads, demonstrating that the “shattered” states of the Levant are merely the latest arenas in this ongoing ideological and economic battle.  

The US and Russia held talks concerning the systemic risk of a sudden collapse of the Assad regime, which would result in a power vacuum utilised by extremist factions.

That said, the book’s argumentative strength could have been improved by considering some additional points. Firstly, while Firmian excels at capturing the broad ideological shift in Chapter Three, he could have more explicitly detailed non-ideological factors, such as the role of the internet and satellite media in rapidly facilitating the transnational organisation of new Islamist movements. Similarly, Chapter Four’s insightful discussion of socioeconomic stress as one of the reasons behind the Arab Spring could have been strengthened by the inclusion of statistical data such youth unemployment and Gini coefficients indicating the unequal income distribution, thereby bolstering a quantitative foundation for the pre-Arab Spring setting. Moreover, Chapter Five’s framing of the Syrian case as a modern iteration of the Cold War antagonism risks oversimplifying the conflict’s relatively ambiguous trajectory. A 2019 congress testimony by former Pentagon official Andrew Exum revealed that the US and Russia held talks concerning the systemic risk of a sudden collapse of the Assad regime, which would result in a power vacuum utilised by extremist factions. Finally, Chapter Six’s geopolitical critique could be enhanced by including more direct critiques of the structural international mechanisms that failed to address the conflict, particularly exploring the UNSC’s paralysis. Since 2011, the Council has been unable to adopt major resolutions on ceasefires, civilian protection, or accountability because Russia, often with China, has vetoed over a dozen drafts. This persistent use of the veto has blocked meaningful collective action and underscored the structural limits of the post-Cold War multilateral system. 

The limits of a narrative approach 

While Firmian’s multi-layered narrative approach is commendable, it falls somewhat short when compared with other seminal works. Raymond Hinnebusch, for example, highlights the structural resilience of the Syrian state and its adaptive authoritarianism; by contrast, Firmian tends to foreground ideology and geopolitical symbolism over institutional survival mechanisms. Similarly, Joshua Landis’ analysis of local power brokers and regional patronage networks offers a granular reading of how militias and sub-state actors shaped conflict dynamics; an area where Firmian did not delve sufficiently. Lisa Wedeen’s analysis of Ba’athist rule and political symbolism reveals how social control fuelled regime durability; Firmian captured some aspects of this symbolic dimension but often treats identity politics at an ideological level rather than as a tool of authoritarian control. Meanwhile, Fawaz Gerges situates the conflict within the failures of international diplomacy and regional rivalries, whereas Firmian tends to compress these patterns into a binary ideological frame of Cold War competition. 

The book is a valuable reference point for readers seeking to grasp not only what occurred in Syria but why the Middle East repeatedly finds itself at the intersection of ideological experiment and geopolitical confrontation.

These comparisons reveal several conceptual blind spots. Firmian intermittently underestimates the extent to which the Syrian conflict was shaped not only by ideological antagonism, but also by regime-survival logic, rentier economics, patron-client relationships, foreign sponsorship, and authoritarian survival practices. The result is an interpretive model that is rich in symbolic contrast but less attentive to the institutional, economic, and micro-political dimensions that other scholars featured as central to understanding the conflict. 

Future work would benefit from integrating ideology with the institutional, economic, and community-level mechanisms that made the Syrian state both fragile and enduring. In this sense, Firmian’s book opens the conversation rather than concluding it, offering an all-encompassing interpretive map that other scholarly works can supplement. The book is a valuable reference point for readers seeking to grasp not only what occurred in Syria but why the Middle East repeatedly finds itself at the intersection of ideological experiment and geopolitical confrontation.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking. Jessica Horn. SAGE. 2024.

In their edited volume Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa, editors Lewis and Baderoon write that those positioned at the margins are empowered not only to offer unique insight about the world, but to speak beyond it to “produc[e] future possible worlds”. Such an observation could equally apply to Jessica Horn’s African Feminist Praxis, a comprehensive examination of African feminist activism and theory-making. Horn locates the work within a rich history of feminist activism, theory making and institution building over the past four decades, from Awa Thiam’s Speak Out, Black Sisters; Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature to The Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies and organisations such as the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD) which promotes feminist research and capacity building workshops. African Feminist Praxis continues to describe and analyse African women’s contestations of global and local, historical and contemporary, and institutional constructions and practices of gender and sexuality that shape the material and discursive lives of those gendered feminine. 

Praxis as theoretically-informed activism 

Horn’s starting assumptions situate women’s studies in movement making in the sense established by Amina Mama and sustain the well-established tenet of African feminism (continental and diasporic) that “gender” as positionality and subjectivity extends far beyond sexual difference. Within this established constellation, Horn’s book is a compelling call to arms; a healing balm to troubled souls in this “impossibly inhumane world” (120); and an imaginative contribution to that praxis. Praxis is understood as activism that is theoretically informed and theoretical development that responds to the challenge of on-the-ground activism; two-sides of a coin aimed at dismantling the architectures of dispossession, exploitation and marginalisation. Praxis centres on unmaking the normative that structures the life-worlds of women and girls across the continent of Africa. 

Horn traces the various struggles African feminists have undertaken through political campaigns, cultural interventions, grassroots organisations and national government and multilateral institutions and policies.

The book unpacks the diverse breadth of feminist praxis that African women (cis, trans, non-binary; spiritual and secular; young and old) have brought forth. Across five chapters (kinship, courage, care, pleasure and memory), Horn traces the various struggles African feminists have undertaken through political campaigns, cultural interventions, grassroots organisations and national government and multilateral institutions and policies. The book analyses both the acts themselves and their legacy, showing how the agenda and signs around which feminists mobilised gather momentum and shift according to contexts and times. “Woman” and “gender” are two such conceptual categories that shifted and expanded through the surfacing of activisms around trans and other non-normative gender positionalities.  

The book holds at once a long historical view and deep social vision that exposes the overlapping patriarchal systems that shape material and ideological conditions governing life across the continent. In consequence, the book surfaces and explores the “gendered lifeworlds [of] women and girls” (5) that are the cumulative and ongoing effect of colonial legacy, compromise and betrayalroughout, the reader sees “praxis” as emerging from the entanglement of word and deed in the service of material and ideological transformation. ideological transformation.  

Acts of resistance from across the continent 

Horn’s continent-wide focus is beautifully deployed throughout the book. In many (if not all) of the examples explored we see how African feminists refuse separation of the material and emotional/psychic effects of structural, governmental, institutional violence and dispossession; and equally work in ways that foster remedy at both material and emotional/psychic levels. For example, in the chapter on Care, Horn describes the work of the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This work with women survivors of the Rwandan genocide centred around transformation of land that had once been a refugee camp, into a “field of replenishment” (60). These women drew on ancestral knowledge of plants and planting to structure and guide the relation between human and more-than-human in a project of healing past harms and forging emergent, transformed subjectivities. Or in relation to HIV/AIDS action in East and Southern Africa, Horn highlights campaigns that entail challenge to the “global culture of sexual abuse” – a culture of abuse that extends from the domestic and local, through the multilateral and global, alongside exposure of and resistance to the practices of Big Pharma that limit access to lifesaving medicines through their pricing and intellectual property strategies. 

Horn surfaces the specific place of a politics of ungovernability in the armoury of African Feminist Praxis, a politics that mobilises the ‘despicable”’ the unruly, and rudeness.  

Across the book, Horn probes the tension that exists between desires for freedom and constraining brakes put on pursuit of radical transformation. These brakes often stem from assimilationist practices that work in service of sustaining the logics of colonial and/or indigenous patriarchy – respectability politics, for example. Against the logics of constraint, modes of AFP work deftly to bypass and defy these brakes and logics, by “push[ing] through a constant flow of interventions that imagine alternative frameworks for ordering collective life” (24-5). Horn shows that central to these African feminist interventions is the construction of new/emergent embodied, sentient individual and collective personhoods across the spectrum of “women” – cis, trans, non-binary – and across the social, cultural, and institutional landscape. Intervention and dissent take many forms: “negotiation, subversion, quiet ambush, boycott, persuasion, and outright public defiance” (9). Significantly, Horn surfaces the specific place of a politics of ungovernability in the armoury of AFP, a politics that mobilises the “despicable”, the unruly, and rudeness.  

For Horn, acts of “radical rudeness” have a long lineage ranging from the pre-colonial era, through flag-independence and into the contemporary digital era when articulations of unruliness disrupt the chains of normative respectability central to patriarchal power and oppression. She points to the examples of Ugandan poet Stella Nyanzi, who was arrested and charged under the Computer Misuse Act 2011; and of Beatrice Mateyo who was arrested at an anti-gender-based violence rally in Malawi 2017 for holding a sign saying “to be born with a vagina is not a sin. My pussy my pride”. Horn shows that ungovernability involves insult and embodied challenge to the taboos of respectability, to make visible radically transformed ways of living and contesting.  

Interiority as part of feminist praxis 

A much-welcomed aspect of the book is that it foregrounds interiority, in tandem with the material (or external) realities of daily living, as an irreducible part of the activists’ lives and their visions of radical transformation. Horn refuses a binary separation between the two: “It is a full-being praxis that invites the recognition but also the nurturing of an embodied consciousness, attendant to the persistence of wounding but equally the constant possibility of healing created with our agency” (77, emphasis added). Horn shows how AFP embraces the material and the personal across her well-chosen examples of activism: intersecting struggles over land access and use; labour and income generation; protection against rape; other modes of sexual and gender-based violence; participation on formal politics; and more. Indeed, in so many cases, Horn shows how struggles over policy that dictate rights of access, social legitimacy and recognition, are simultaneously struggles over the body, sexuality and health. 

A must-read for all who wish to understand the character and scope of forms of feminism across Africa; to shift the centre of feminist analytic gravity away from the Global North; and who are in need of resources of hope, courage and transformative imagination.

Throughout the book, Horn surfaces modes of action that are feminist, even when the actors themselves may not name themselves as feminist. Labelled feminist or not, “they are defiantly supporting of women’s space and agency, and articulate a praxis that is feminist in impact in its critique of patriarchy and intersecting oppressions, alongside the unapologetic affirmation of the right to voice and weave women’s presence into collective history” (109). African Feminist Praxis is a must-read for all who wish to understand the character and scope of forms of feminism across Africa; to shift the centre of feminist analytic gravity away from the Global North; and who are in need of resources of hope, courage and transformative imagination in these perilous times. Read, learn, act.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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How Africa Eats: Trade, Food Security and Climate Risks. Edited by David Luke. LSE Press. 2025.

Africa is facing a troubling rise in food insecurity, with more than one in five people unable to access sufficient nutritious food. In How Africa Eats: Trade, Food Security and Climate Risks, edited by David Luke, scholars and practitioners explain why, by focusing on the trade-related drivers of hunger on the continent. Compiling research undertaken by the African Trade Policy Programme at LSE’s Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, the book’s ten chapters converge on a central message: without a sharp focus on trade policy, African countries will remain mired in food insecurity, and climate change will only magnify the challenge. 

The roots of Africa’s food insecurity  

The volume begins by tracing food insecurity in Africa to a deep-seated structural imbalance: an agricultural sector focused on exporting raw commodities whilst relying heavily on imports of consumable food. Today, 82 per cent of African countries’ basic food comes from outside the continent, and 16 African countries spend over 40 per cent of their export revenue on food imports. 

Every country’s domestic support allowance is tied to the value of its agricultural production. This automatically constrains African nations, whose production values are low compared to wealthy countries.

The authors argue that stagnating export volumes and values, compounded by the mounting pressures of climate change require a rapid and fundamental shift in the continent’s trade make-up. Through extensive data visualisations, they bring fresh urgency to the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis which contends that over time, the price of primary commodities declines relative to that of manufactured goods, due to differences in income elasticity of demand. The book’s early chapters establish the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis as an observable reality, underscoring the vulnerability of African economies locked into commodity-export dependence, and pointing to the urgent need for structural transformation.

The paradox of subsidies 

Subsequent chapters focus on trade flows and regulations within and outside the continent. A standout contribution is the chapter devoted to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) legal framework. Authors Van der Ven and Luke frame their analysis in a profound yet under-appreciated paradox: “subsidies in countries that can afford them contribute to global food availability but disincentivise production in poorer countries through price suppression.” 

Against this backdrop, they unpack the rules and intricacies of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and related mechanisms with clarity and precision, exposing an over-arching framework that systematically disadvantages all but a handful of countries. For instance, every country’s domestic support allowance is tied to the value of its agricultural production. This automatically constrains African nations, whose production values are low compared to wealthy countries. As a result, just four WTO members (the EU, Japan, USA, and Mexico) hold 88.4 per cent of the total allowances for trade-distorting agricultural subsidies known as the Final Bound Total Aggregate Measurement of Support (FBTAMS). 

A chapter on the expected impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) underlines the importance of dismantling non-tariff barriers, improving infrastructure and cross-border coordination

However, as the chapter goes on to explain, unfair rules are only part of the story. Many African countries struggle to make full use of the allowances and preferences they do have, such as those under the “Development Box” due to institutional, technical and financial constraints. Compounding this, reductions in global subsidies could drive up the cost of food imports for Africa, especially since any increase in local production would take time.  
 

How global trade rules disadvantage Africa

The story of global trade rules stifling Africa’s agricultural exports is re-told through the lens of bilateral trade in a separate chapter by Vinaye Dey Ancharaz. Ancharaz examines the continent’s evolving relationships with key partners, from the EU and the US, to rising players like Brazil, India, and China. We see how even preferential access schemes like the EU’s Everything But Arms concession and the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) fall short of expectations. While these arrangements offer duty-free access to African exporters, in practice they are undermined by exceptions and complex non-tariff barriers. For example, the EU applies temporary restrictions on imports of sugar, fruits, vegetables, poultry and meat, which are already aided by subsidies and tariff protection. These “special safeguard measures” are permissible under WTO rules. Non-tariff barriers, especially those related to food safety and hygiene are also major hurdles. To illustrate, the author provides the striking example of baby squash and courgettes from Zambia, which were considered for export following the enactment of AGOA in 2001, but received the green light more than seven years later. 

Conflicting policy interests and staple food vulnerability

The chapter also addresses recent developments on regulations to curb climate emissions and improve sustainability which risk morphing into a new form of trade protectionism. Using the EU’s Deforestation Regulation (2023) as a case in point, the author invites readers to consider whether climate goals can be pursued without deepening global trade inequities. In a similar vein, a chapter on the expected impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) underlines the importance of dismantling non-tariff barriers, improving infrastructure and cross-border coordination to realise the full benefits of an already largely liberalised continent. 

A chapter titled “What Africa Eats – the basic foods” by Olawale Ogunkola and Vinaye Dey Ancharaz provides valuable insights on the eight most widely consumed foods on the continent by calorie intake. The consumption, production, trade, and climate vulnerability profiles of each one is analysed in detail based on publicly available data from the Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Yams turn out to be the only staple for which production keeps pace with consumption. For every other major food source, (cassava, maize, rice, wheat, poultry, meat, and fish) demand consistently outstrips production and yields are far below the global average. Based on this, the authors position improvements in productivity as core to Africa’s food security strategy, conceding that in some cases (meat for instance), this may compromise climate resilience. 

Alternative ways to secure quality food 

In focusing on caloric sufficiency however, the authors sideline nutritional quality. Hidden hunger is widespread across the continent and centring the analysis on calories leads to a framing of food security that prioritises quantity over quality. Considering the nutritional makeup of the African plate could open the door to more holistic policy responses. Investing in indigenous crops like millets, sorghum, and legumes, for example, offers a double dividend: these foods are nutrient-dense and well-suited to the continent’s changing climate. Unfortunately, the authors seem to dismiss such actions as too modest, arguing instead for shifts in trade policy to drive transformation.  

The volume provides a rich account of how trade flows and frameworks shape food insecurity across Africa.

Given the authors’ emphasis on import dependency, it is also surprising that no reference is made to food sovereignty movements which advocate for more local control over food systems to reduce reliance on volatile global markets, while also enhancing nutrition and livelihoods. Such perspectives are essential for the continent’s long-term resilience.

Overall, the volume provides a rich account of how trade flows and frameworks shape food insecurity across Africa. It offers pragmatic guidance to practitioners and policymakers interested in the continent’s food future. In a policy space peppered with difficult trade-offs, competing interests, and inertia, the authors succeed in identifying several actionable levers for reform. These include African countries advocating for a special safeguard mechanism to protect domestic producers from import surges, signing the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, and participating in discussions on repurposing subsidies to improve environmental outcomes. How Africa Eats makes a key contribution to the scholarship. I hope it sparks deeper engagement with the structural drivers of food insecurity on the continent and generates the strategic policy responses it calls for.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East. Fawaz A. Gerges. Princeton University Press. 2025.

The Middle East is a global centre of economic and political gravity, a site of great struggles over power, land and resources involving actors from around the world. Across a century of state building, the Middle East has been beset by major crises, from post-war instability in Iraq to civil war in Syria, from the Arab Spring and its aftermath to the rise and fall of ISIS and Iran-Saudi rivalry over control of the region. The Arab-Israeli conflict has been most prevalent on the international stage since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel launched its response which has killed thousands of Palestinians and pushed many more to the brink of starvation. Beyond Gaza, war and conflict, sectarian violence, foreign intervention and elite capture have created miserable conditions for people throughout the Middle East, who have been systematically denied self-determination, representation of their voices, and just and effective government. Analysts, strategists and scholars of various disciplines have sought explanations for this pattern, and Fawaz A. Gerges, a prominent intellectual of Middle Eastern studies, takes his turn at the task in a new book. 

The post-war state structure that Arabs inherited was incapable of delivering intermediary services between states and their populations

At the centre of The Great Betrayal are several core questions: What explains the chronic instability in the Middle East? How do we make sense of the foreign interventions in the region’s internal affairs that perpetuate geo-political rivalries, rampant militarism and political authoritarianism? To find answers, Gerges delves deep into the grassroots perspectives of watershed moments in Middle Eastern history, from the first years of the colonial era through the present day. To make the story of the Middle East more accessible to non-specialists, the author adopts historical-sociology as an effective analytical framework, built around the interaction of three key forces within the context of prolonged conflicts. First, the repeated intervention by foreign powers. Second, domestic authoritarianism, and third, the agency of everyday people in the region. The first two mutually reinforcing forces help to explain why ordinary people suffer exclusion from representative government and basic human rights protections.

Colonial interference and anti-colonial responses 

According to Gerges, mainstream discussion of the Middle East has mainly focused on rulers and elite politics. This tendency has led to a distorted view of societal currents and makes us oblivious to the desires of ordinary people. Gerges argues that Western powers have repeatedly intervened in the region’s politics, driven by imperial ambitions and the desire for military and economic expansion. The West has presented Arab-Islamic world as “exotic, irrational, and inferior cultural other in need of a civilizing mission” (5). The repeated pattern of intense foreign intervention in the region’s internal affairs has had a deleterious impact on political, economic, and social affairs. The borders of some Middle Eastern states and their institutions were set up by white men in smoke-filled tea rooms in Western capitals, without ever intending to ease their grip – the “original sin” (the title of his first chapter) that has caused continuous instability. He argues that colonial projects such as the Sykes-Picot agreement and Balfour declaration disempowered the region to ensure its impotence and submissiveness to foreign powers.

Even after the decolonisation process, interventions have persisted, prolonging colonialism under different names and disguises thereby creating dependencies. The West’s repeated betrayal of the Arab world convinced many that sinister conspiracies are a constant feature of their politics (49). The post-war state structure that Arabs inherited was incapable of delivering intermediary services between states and their population. A lack of institutional capacity, along with emphasis on strengthening security institutions, allowed the colonial powers to pave the way for the advent of populist strongmen in regional politics. In the aftermath of this precarious period, two radical forces came to dominate Arab politics: nationalism and Islamism. The anti-colonial struggle fuelled these anti-hegemonic ideologies and, as a result, they gained more sheen in 1930s and 1940s. The authoritarianism at the heart of the imperial framework paved the way for the political authoritarianism of the post-independence Arab state system (65).  

The rise and fall of Arab nationalism 

The end of the colonial era was a moment of immense hope in the Middle East with the promise of establishing a new social contract between the people and their rulers. Taking the example of Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, the author introduces the concept of foundational myth, which holds that the Arab people are a unified community entitled to a physical state. This provided post-independent states with a new raison d’etre and motivation to replace the colonialist agenda. But Arab nationalism is frequently regarded as a “misnomer”, since the idea of an Arab nation, as a single unified political entity could not accurately represent the many realities and historical experiences of the Arab world. Shared traits like language and culture have not been enough to forge a cohesive Arab nation as a single political entity. Perhaps the central weakness of Arab nationalism is its inconstant definition as a concept: Arab nationalists have defined nationalism according to the flow of the political tide. 

The book not only stimulates critical thinking but also bridges the gap between academic scholarship and real life means of effecting change, pointing to the Syrian people’s success in overthrowing the Assad regime in 2024, against all odds. 

Ultimately, Gamal Abdul Nasser lost power, Arab nationalism failed, and this failure undermined the Arab state system and deepened the legitimacy crisis. Gerges contends that territorial nationalism could have thrived had the ruling elite pursued a social contract with its citizens – a sort of open society based on rule of law. Efraim Karsh argues that the endemic instability in the Middle East stems from the failure of local political elites to internalise state nationalism combined with their continuous subscription to notions of imperialism. These notions have often been endorsed by western political and intellectual circles that have viewed them as beneficial to their own interests. 

A dynamic, sociological addition to the scholarship 

Much of the traditional, Western-centric, scholarship on the Middle East has focused primarily on state-centric and orientalist framework, reducing the Middle Eastern politics to deterministic understanding. However, Gerges’ analysis is more dynamic and sociologically grounded, offering readers a critically balanced perspective of the regional dynamics at play. The author’s methodology of interlinking historical events with contemporary socio-political dynamics and postcolonial critique deepens our understanding of the region. Gerges shows how popular agency and collective memory create changing forms of resistance and potential democratic transform, while demonstrating how the past ruptures and betrayals reverberate in contemporary politics. From Nasser’s promise of social justice to Anwar Sadat’s neoliberal turn, to Hosni Mubarak’s police state, Gerges weaves different threads together to form a coherent narrative of political struggle, oppression and enduring public resistance. As a whole, the book not only stimulates critical thinking but also bridges the gap between academic scholarship and real life means of effecting change, pointing to the Syrian people’s success in overthrowing the Assad regime in 2024, against all odds. 

According to the author, the political structure of the Middle East was engineered, and as such, is reversible. Today there is a multifaceted struggle in the region, and it is more than territorial. It is ideological, cultural and institutional, and is unfolding among a multitude of actors, including conservatives, Islamists, nationalists, and everyday citizens. There is an urgent need to envision a new Middle East, one that is free from colonial power structures and overly deterministic post-colonial understandings. If realised, it could act as a vital counternarrative to the ideologies of extremism and settler colonialism. Gerges pins his hopes for achieving it on the young Arab population who demand to be treated not as subjects, but as citizens.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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