Drinking Power: Alcohol and History in Africa

Abstract

This article surveys the literature on alcohol in Africa. It suggests that the trajectory of this literature has very much followed that of African history generally: beginning with a focus on the colonialism itself; then moving to an exploration of African ‘resistance’; and then into studies of the post-colonial state and approaches which have emphasized the importance of cultural continuity, and African agency. While history writing has tended to see alcohol essentially as a way of exploring larger processes of social change, there has been a largely unstated rift in the wider literature on alcohol in Africa between, on the one hand those who view alcoholic beverages – and especially novel beverages – as drivers of change in themselves; and on the other hand those who see the potency of alcohol as essentially ascribed, and view the study of drink principally as a window on other processes of change.