Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics

TOYIN FALOLA is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas, Austin, TX. He is the series editor of the University of Rochester Press' series Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora. RASHEED OYEWOLE OLANIYI is Professor of African History at the Department of History, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He has several publications in peer-reviewed journals and books on Economic and Social History focusing on migration and diaspora studies, conflict and peacebuilding, identity politics, and vigilantism. TOYIN FALOLA is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas, Austin, TX. He is the series editor of the University of Rochester Press' series Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.

• Introduction - Toyin Falola and Ann GenovaThe Yorùbá Nation - Toyin FalolaOral Tradition and the Reconstruction of Yorùbá Dress - Tunde M. AkinwumiDiaries as Cultural and Intellectual Histories - Olufunke A. AdeboyeHistoriography of Western Yorùbá Borderlands - R.T. AkinyeleThe History of the Okun Yorùbá: Research Directions - Ann O'HearIlá Kingdom Revisited: Recent Archaeological Research at Ilá-Yàrà - Early Ijebú History: An Analysis on Demographic Evolution and State Formation - Tunde OduwobiPower, Status, and Influence of Yorùbá Chiefs in Historical Perspective - Toyin FalolaChieftaincy Structures, Communal Identity, and Decolonization in Yorùbáland - Olufemi VaughanOdogbolu Chieftaincy Dispute in Historical Perspective - Abolade AdenijiYorùbá Nationalism and the Reshaping of Obaship - Jean-Luc MartineauApproaching the Study of the Yorùbá Diaspora in Northern Nigeria - Rasheed OlaniyiYorùbá-Nigerians in Toronto: Transnational Practices and Experiences - Charles Temitope AdeyanjuYorùbá Factor in Nigerian Politics - Julius O. AdekunlePolitics, Ethnicity, and the Struggle for Autonomy and Democracy - Funso AfolayanPetroleum and Ethno-Politics - Ann GenovaChief M.K.O. Abiola's Presidential Ambitions and Yorùbá Democratic Rights - Olayiwola Abegunrin

Toyin Falola and Ann Genova have done Yorùbá studies an excellent service by thoughtfully bringing together a collection of essays that draws from the inspiration of previous works but avoids the pitfalls of rehashing old ideas. The result is an imaginative, refreshing, and beautiful scholarship without the pretensions of textual and theoretical jargons. We finally have that long-sought single volume that superbly captures major and diverse historical themes in Yorùbá experience from the precolonial to the present in wholesome interdisciplinary frameworks. Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics is a superior work in the genre, an excellent book to teach and think with on a myriad of topics relevant to contemporary Africa. --