1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910917599003321

Autore

Daly Samuel Fury Childs <1986->

Titolo

Soldier's paradise : militarism in Africa after empire / / Samuel Fury Childs Daly

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Duke University Press, 2024

ISBN

1-4780-9418-4

1-4780-5982-6

Classificazione

POL045000LAW060000

Disciplina

320.966909/04

Soggetti

Postcolonialism - Nigeria

Dictatorship - Africa - History - 20th century

Military government - Africa - History - 20th century

Postcolonialism - Africa

POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism

LAW / Legal History

Nigeria History 1960-

Nigeria History, Military 20th century

Nigeria Politics and government 1960-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

The gavel and the gun : the inheritance of colonialism -- The soldier's creed : discipline as an ideology -- The portable coup : the jurisprudence of military "revolution" -- Oracles and autocrats : the uses of customary law -- Fela Kuti goes to court : the spectacle of inquiry -- The gift of martial law : military tribunals for civilians -- Coda: Militarism's denouement.

Sommario/riassunto

"Soldier's Paradise is an exploration of the ideologies that fueled military dictatorships in late-twentieth-century Africa. Through speeches and writing, the development of martial law, and public prosecutions, including the 1977 raid on Fela Kuti's compound, Samuel Fury Childs Daly provides a history of Nigeria's military dictatorship. In so doing, he also shows how the new nation's legal structures, largely inherited from British colonizers, were complicit with and facilitated



military rule. Using an original collection of legal records, archival documents, and memoirs, Soldier's Paradise shows how law enabled militarism-and worked against it. Daly establishes Nigeria's military rulers as having recognizable theories and participating in legitimate structures of governance. In so doing, this book pushes back against some strains of African social history which try to position the militarism that affected the bulk of postcolonial African societies as aberrant. Instead, it explores how these governments worked (and didn't work) and why they appealed to civilians (and didn't). Long submerged by more hopeful ideological currents, militarism is now rising back to the surface of African politics. Soldier's Paradise describes where it came from, and why it lasted so long"--