Nigeria and World War II: Colonialism, Empire, and Global Conflict
本书基于尼日利亚人向殖民当局递交的请愿书等史料，全面考察了二战期间尼日利亚人的战争参与及其对日常生活的影响，论证了战争在尼日利亚历史中的关键作用。
World War II has long been seen as a great turning point in Nigerian—and African—history. Back in 1973, G.O. Olusanya argued that the war years in Nigeria saw a ‘great political awakening’.1 Chima J. Korieh’s new book endorses and extends this argument. Korieh offers an unprecedentedly broad vision of Nigerians’ involvement in the war, which ranges from a Calabar baby show that raised money for the Nigerian War Relief Fund, to the notorious Jos tin mines, and the rainforests of Burma, where many Nigerian soldiers fought. Korieh’s book indisputably demonstrates that the war played an important part in Nigerian history, but also that Nigeria played an important part in the history of the war. The particular strength of Korieh’s book is its focus on under-explored aspects of Nigeria’s wartime experience. This is possible thanks to Korieh’s use as source material of Nigerians’ petitions to colonial authorities, an approach that will be familiar to readers of his pioneering earlier work. Korieh aptly describes these petitions as ‘an ideal vehicle for channeling the counterhegemonic discourse of colonial subjects’ (p. 177). His sustained use of petitions as evidence allows the book to explore in new ways how Nigerians framed their place in the global conflict, and how it affected their everyday lives.