{"product_id":"colonial-meltdown-moses-e-ochonu-9780821418901","title":"Colonial Meltdown: Northern Nigeria in the Great Depression","description":"\u003cp\u003eHistorians of colonial Africa have largely regarded the decade of the Great Depression as a period of intense exploitation and colonial inactivity. In \u003ci\u003eColonial Meltdown\u003c\/i\u003e, Moses E. Ochonu challenges this conventional interpretation by mapping the determined, at times violent, yet instructive responses of Northern Nigeria's chiefs, farmers, laborers, artisans, women, traders, and embryonic elites to the British colonial mismanagement of the Great Depression. \u003ci\u003eColonial Meltdown\u003c\/i\u003e explores the unraveling of British colonial power at a moment of global economic crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOchonu shows that the economic downturn made colonial exploitation all but impossible and that this dearth of profits and surpluses frustrated the colonial administration which then authorized a brutal regime of grassroots exactions and invasive intrusions. The outcomes were as harsh for Northern Nigerians as those of colonial exploitation in boom years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNorthern Nigerians confronted colonial economic recovery measures and their agents with a variety of strategies. \u003ci\u003eColonial Meltdown\u003c\/i\u003e analyzes how farmers, women, laborers, laid-off tin miners, and NorthernNigeria's emergent elite challenged and rebelled against colonial economic recovery schemes with evasive trickery, defiance, strategic acts of revenge, and criminal self-help and, in the process, exposed the weak underbelly of the colonial system.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCombined with the economic and political paralysis of colonial bureaucrats in the face of crisis, these African responses underlined the fundamental weakness of the colonial state, the brittleness of its economicmission, and the limits of colonial coercion and violence. This atmosphere of colonial collapse emboldened critics of colonial policies who went on to craft the rhetorical terms on which the anticolonial struggle of the post-World War II period was fought out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the current climate of global economic anxieties, Ochonu's analysis will enrich discussions on the transnational ramifications of economic downturns. It will also challenge the pervasive narrative of imperial economic success.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Moses E. Ochonu\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0821418904\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780821418901\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Ohio University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/01\/2009\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/01\/2010 pg. 58","brand":"Moses E. Ochonu","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43926522757375,"sku":"9780821418901","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_ff162659-8763-4976-ade8-871bb62f74b6.jpg?v=1681083534","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/colonial-meltdown-moses-e-ochonu-9780821418901","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}