Lineages of State Fragility: Rural Civil Society in Guinea-Bissau (Western African Studies) - Tapa dura

...a readable and thought-provoking book - Lars Rudebeck in AFRICAN AFFAIRS
...unique in its scope and depth. By putting an otherwise much neglected country and its chequered history on the map Forrest has done Guinea Bissau justice. Above all, Forrest has correctly focused upon the remarkable feats of the country's different communities and the way in which they challenged, and still challenge, outside intervention (by incorporating some outsiders and related phenomena), while retaining their autonomy in the process. Forrest's study exemplifies how productive the combination of primary and secondary sources and the creative use of modern political theory can be for a comparative analysis of the resilience of African societies. His approach provides much food for thought in regard to political change, a subject that has (again) been placed high on the African agenda since multiparty elections became a major issue. We hope that the author's effort may serve as an inspiration to scholars who are prepared to retrieve forgotten or neglected corners of Africa, and to reassess historical and political premises by delving deep into its distant and more recent past in a comparative perspective.H-NET REVIEWS
...an intriguing and greatly commendable case study that - if only implicitly - makes a valuable contribution to the arguments advanced in the recent literature on postcolonial studies. - Denis M. Tull, JOURNAL OF MODERN AFRICAN STUDIES

In this impressive work Forrest examines a significant and overlooked aspect of Guinea-Bissau's political evolution: the continuing ability of civil society to evade and thwart state power. The work identifies the social formations that account for civil societal strength and analyses the socially, politically, and militarily significant experiences of rural civil society to account for the social origins of Guinea-Bissau's soft state.

North America: Ohio U Press