Three things to know about Africa and the Great War (since the Centenary)

Public lecture by Michelle Moyd in the Series Africa, Method, Theory

The African world’s multifaceted involvement in the global First World War remains marginal in existing historiography. This is true despite a surge of scholarly production and public interest during the Great War’s centenary (2014-2018). By foregrounding African and African diasporic peoples’ perspectives on, and actions in, the Great War, this talk offers three perhaps unconventional ways of understanding its violent, but also generative, effects across different dimensions of their socio-economic, political, and spiritual lives. 

Michelle Moyd is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is a historian of eastern Africa and studies the region’s histories of soldiering and warfare. Her first book, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa(Ohio University Press, 2014) explores the social and cultural history of African soldiers (askari) in the colonial army of German East Africa, today’s Tanzania. She currently works on a book entitled Africa, Africans, and the First World War, which examines the spectrum of African experiences in the war, especially as soldiers and workers.