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Toyin Falola and Saheed Aderinto. Nigeria, Nationalism, and Writing History. Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2010. xiii, 333 pp.
It is not strange that Nigeria has been the subject of important publications on Africa by Africanist writers as well as Nigerian historians of different ilk and perspectives in the last two decades. The fact is that there are more publications on Nigeria written by non-Africans than those by Nigerians and other Africans. The cumulative effect of the ever-increasing interest in Nigeria by non-Nigerian writers has been the projection and popularization of the country's history and traditions beyond its limited confines. The book under review is majorly concerned about the representations of Nigeria by pre-colonial and post-colonial Nigerian historians as they sought to counter Eurocentric stereotypes about the peoples and cultures of Nigeria during the particular historical epoch of their preoccupation. Spurred by nationalist fervor, Nigerian historians of the first and second generations, according to the authors, reconstructed the politics and economy of Nigeria's pre-colonial societies. The authors' main objective in addition to reflecting on historical renditions on Nigeria, was to re-introduce Africans into history writing about Africa in view of the diminishing share of African historians in the global output of literature on...