Drawing on years of research, Boko Haram is a timely addition to the acclaimed Ohio Short Histories of Africa. Brandon Kendhammer and Carmen McCain—two leading specialists on northern Nigeria—separate fact from fiction within one of the world’s least-understood conflicts. Most distinctively, it is a social history, one that tells the story of Boko Haram’s violence through the journalism, literature, film, and music made by people close to it.
Brandon Kendhammer is associate professor of political science and director of international development studies at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio. He has published widely on religion, ethnicity, and politics in Nigeria, and is the author of Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria.
Carmen McCain is assistant professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Her research focuses on Hausa-language literature, film, and popular culture. In addition to her academic articles on Nigerian film and literature, she has been a columnist with the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust and has taught at several Nigerian universities.