The book traces the history of writing about Nigeria since the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the rise of nationalist historiography and the leading themes. The second half of the twentieth century saw the publication of massive amounts of literature on Nigeria by Nigerian and non-Nigerian historians. This volume reflects on that literature, focusing on those works by Nigerians in thecontext of the rise and decline of African nationalist historiography. Given the diminishing share in the global output of literature on Africa by African historians, it has become crucial to reintroduce Africans into historicalwriting about Africa. As the authors attempt here to rescue older voices, they also rehabilitate a stale historiography by revisiting the issues, ideas, and moments that produced it. This revivalism also challenges Nigerian historians of the twenty-first century to study the nation in new ways, to comprehend its modernity, and to frame a new set of questions on Nigeria's future and globalization. In spite of current problems in Nigeria and its universities, that historical scholarship on Nigeria (and by extension, Africa) has come of age is indisputable. From a country that struggled for Western academic recognition in the 1950s to one that by the 1980s had emerged as one of the most studied countries in Africa, Nigeria is not only one of the early birthplaces of modern African history, but has also produced members of the first generation of African historians whose contributions to the development and expansion of modern African history is undeniable. Like their counterparts working on other parts of the world, these scholars have been sensitive to the need to explore virtually all aspects of Nigerian history. The book highlights the careers of some of Nigeria's notable historians of the first and second generation. Toyin Falola is Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Saheed Aderinto is Assistant Professor of History at Western Carolina University.

Part 1. Origins and spirituality of Nigerian Pentecostalism. Sources of Nigerian pentecostalism --The spell of the invisible --Excremental visions in postcolonial Pentecostalism --Desire and disgust : ways of being for God --The Pentecostal self : from body to body politic --Part 2. Ethical vision of Nigerian Pentecostal spirituality. Politics: between ontology and spiritual warfare --Miracles, sovereignty, and community --Altersovereignty and virtue of Pentecostal friendship --Spirituality and the weight of blackness --"This neighbor cannot be loved!" : invisibility and nudity of the "Pentecostal other"--Pentecostalism and Nigerian society.

First Published in 1979. The collection of writings brought together in this book was written within the last ten years in different circumstances and for different purposes. However, they have one thing in common: they were intended to shed new light, or strike new depths, or widen scope of knowledge on some aspects of Nigerian history in the context of the author’s researches.

With her award-winning debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was heralded by the Washington Post Book World as the “21st century daughter” of Chinua Achebe. Now, in her masterly, haunting new novel, she recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria during the 1960s. With the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Ugwu is houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor who sends him to school, and in whose living room Ugwu hears voices full of revolutionary zeal. Odenigbo’s beautiful mistress, Olanna, a sociology teacher, is running away from her parents’ world of wealth and excess; Kainene, her urbane twin, is taking over their father’s business; and Kainene’s English lover, Richard, forms a bridge between their two worlds. As we follow these intertwined lives through a military coup, the Biafran secession and the subsequent war, Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise, and intimately, the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place. Epic, ambitious and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a more powerful, dramatic and intensely emotional picture of modern Africa than any we have had before.

The English-language branch of the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, has become the third largest in the world. Nollywood films saturate Nigeria and have spread across the African continent, achieving an astonishing extent and depth of cultural influence. They are the most important modern cultural form to come out of Africa. In this book, Jonathan Haynes aims to map out the cultural terrain of Nollywood films much more comprehensively and ambitiously than has been to date. He in effect establishes a canon for Nollywood films. The book is organized around the historical development of Nollywood film culture, which is explored with close attention to the recent history of Nigeria. Throughout the book, genre (defined with reference to common usage in Nigerian film markets) is the principal framework. Thus after establishing a sense of the material and social circumstances out of which Nollywood was born and exploring a few landmark films, Haynes analyzes the durable set of themes and plot types that dominate the industry and reveal deeply embedded tensions in contemporary Nigerian life. These genres include family films and romances, village films, cultural epics, political films, films made in or about the Nigerian diaspora, and campus films. Haynes concludes by offering some remarks on the future of Nollywood, exploring the buzz around a New Nollywood of films with higher budgets fit for international film festivals and widespread screening in cinemas in Nigeria and abroad."

This book, Education in Nigeria: Reflections and Global Perspectives, provides a broad overview of education in Nigeria. It recognizes the vital role education plays in the development of Nigeria and has attempted to air the concerns and call of the Nigerian public as well as educators for reform in the educational system in Nigeria. The book further recognizes that Nigerian education continues to be evolved, first into a system of Western European education and then into a global system of education. It attempts to examine the status of education in Nigeria and thereby seeks solutions by exploring Nigeria’s and global historical perspectives, current trends, and future directions regarding students and learning, teachers and teaching, the school curriculum, and administration of schools. It is expected that the comprehensive nature of the text will be beneficial to individuals in teacher preparation programs as well as those who plan to work with children in pre-kindergarten (nursery) through secondary settings. The chapter content of the book focuses on the variation of thought as to the principal objectives of educators to help students in Nigeria develop habits, skills and ideas, and help them to think. It adds to the importance of providing education to all, especially at the time when Nigeria is frankly making an eff ort to affirm democracy. For any nation to be truly democratic, it must maintain an educated electorate. Education prepares people to make informed decisions that affect the society. All children in Nigeria should, therefore, receive an education to prepare them to become effective members of the world society. This book seeks to examine and reflect on education in Nigeria and globally. “...are genuinely working in order to produce not only intelligent men and women, who will be cultured and skilled, but also the leaders who will adapt themselves to their environment, adjust themselves to the outside world and give direction and purpose to their people for the building of a modern nation, whose nationals must realize that they are destined to give leadership in many directions of human endeavour.” ~ Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, FMR President of Nigeria, speaking of progressive elements of Nigeria

This book explores the world of Nigerian universities to offer an innovative perspective on the history of development and decolonisation from the 1930s to the 1960s. Using political, cultural and spatial approaches, the book shows that Nigerians and foreign donors alike saw the nation’s new universities as vital institutions: a means to educate future national leaders, drive economic growth, and make a modern Nigeria. Universities were vibrant places, centres of nightlife, dance, and the construction of spectacular buildings, as well as teaching and research. At universities, students, scholars, visionaries, and rebels considered and contested colonialism, the global Cold War, and the future of Nigeria. University life was shaped by, and formative to, experiences of development and decolonisation. The book will be of interest to historians of Africa, empire, education, architecture, and the Cold War.