No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa

Rating:
Summary: I had to buy this for a class
Review: This one of those books that you hate to buy for any class. Not only was it one of the most tedious reads, but you could fake having read it just based on the class discussion. My advice, if you have to buy this for a class do so with a couple of other people, divide the chapters and then summarize them to each other. Otherwise be prepared for a tedious evening.

Rating:
Summary: First-Rate Scholarship On Rural Africa
Review: Written by one of the most highly-regarded Africanists, "No Condition Is Permanent" resists the temptations of easy generalization in assessing processes of change in rural Africa. Berry's many years of field and archival research in Nigeria give great strength to the book, but she also masterfully uses the literature on the other countries she discusses (Zambia, Kenya, Ghana). She is interested throughout in complexity: the varied impacts of foreign and state intervention in household and regional economies; the ways people organize access to land, labor, capital and other critical resources; and how they have dealt with natural and social constraints along with opportunities for growth. Since the paths to economic development are quite diverse (and not guaranteed), the analysis is necessarily nuanced, a fact that would escape someone who "knocks off" the book in an evening. "No Condition" is very well-written, but since Berry is more literary technician than stylist, its considerable rewards are intellectual rather than aesthetic. Since it was published, further important material has appeared to shed more light on her case studies. On Northern Zambia, see H. Moore & M. Vaughan, "Cutting Down Trees." On Western Nigeria, there is J. Guyer, "An African Niche Economy." Berry herself has extended her expertise to Ghana in "Chiefs Know Their Boundaries," and the debates on Kenya (including Mau Mau) have proceeded apace.