Great Upheaval

Judith A. Byfield is a professor of history at Cornell University. She is the author of The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890–1940 and coeditor of Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century, Africa and World War II, and Gendering the African Diaspora: Women, Culture, and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland.

“Byfield has written a meticulously documented history of women’s political activities during the first half of the twentieth century. The women of Abeokuta played a leading part in the history of economic change, nationalism, and eventual independence in colonial Nigeria, and Byfield’s study is a welcome addition to scholarly analysis of political and economic transformation in Nigeria and Africa in general during this crucial period.” - Sara Berry, professor emerita of history, Johns Hopkins University “The Great Upheaval is a brilliant historical sociology of the gendered struggle for ‘a new philosophy of life’ in a colonial context. Judith Byfield reminds us that the erasure of women and gender in nationalist histories of emancipation in Africa diminishes our understanding of the complexity of ‘nation-building,’ including the contradictions of gendered notions of agency and freedom. The author seamlessly interweaves gender and nation with colonial history and political economy in the analysis of how Abeokuta women expanded the vistas of human possibilities in early- to mid-20th century Nigeria.” - Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania “Competent, coherent, and captivating, Judith Byfield combines the values of deep research with deep thinking to extend the frontiers of knowledge on gender politics in postwar Nigeria’s late colonial period. City, national, and global ideas converge in The Great Upheaval to locate Yoruba women in complex intersections of economy, politics, and race.” - Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin “Judith Byfield has not only shown that women in Abeokuta played important parts in struggles against colonialism and for better social conditions, but that focusing on gender forces us to rethink histories of kingship, urban life, trade, taxation, religion, protest movements, and memorialization-indeed, the entire history of the region and its relationship to Nigeria.” - Frederick Cooper, author of Citizenship, Inequality, and Difference: Historical Perspectives “[A] brilliant book…. Highly recommended.” - T. O. Falola (Choice)

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroductionChapter 1. The Birth and Demise of a Nation: The Egba United GovernmentChapter 2. Abeokuta’s Centenary: Masculinity and Nationalist Politics in a Colonial SpaceChapter 3. Race, Nation, and Politics in the Interwar PeriodChapter 4. Women, Rice, and War: Economic Crisis in Wartime AbeokutaChapter 5. “Freedom from Want”: Politics, Protest, and the Postwar InterludeChapter 6. Daughters of Tinubu: Crisis and Confrontation in AbeokutaConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex