Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Marco Wyss is a professor of international history and security at Lancaster University. His research focuses on historical and contemporary questions of security, defense, and diplomacy in Africa and Europe. He is the author of Postcolonial Security: Britain, France, and West Africa's Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2021).

"In this concise but richly researched biography,  Marco Wyss has delivered very well on two important issues. First is the contradictory image of a significant African political figure in the decolonization and neocolonial eras. Second is the issue of agency in African development under coloniality. Houphouët-Boigny gravitates between savior and villain and often lands on pragmatism. The book offers great insight into the African conundrum of leadership and development." - Abu Bakarr Bah, Northern Illinois University "The enduring enigma of Côte d’Ivoire is how this glimmering model of postcolonial success in the 1960s and 1970s-an economic “miracle”-could collapse so completely into civil war at the founding leader’s decline and death.  Many would say that Côte d’Ivoire resurrected itself a few decades later, in the late 2010s and 2020s. Marco Wyss’s new book asks us to look again at Félix Houphouët-Boigny (FHB) in the context of his times, to ask what the individual and “the FHB era” bequeathed to this country.  Wyss provides a nuanced view of the man and his era, offering the reader a holistic sense of trajectory of this important African country." - Catherine Boone, London School of Economics and Political Science "This short biography is a very enjoyable read, structured around four periods and/or themes with clear and catchy titles. Marco Wyss paints a balanced portrait of the father of Ivorian independence, informed by recently released public sources (such as the Foccart archives) and the latest academic research." - Walter Bruyère-Ostells, Sciences "Po Aix Marco Wyss’s important new biography of Félix Houphouët-Boigny explores the modus operandi of a master political tactician and close ally of France, who reinvented himself as an African nationalist on the eve of independence. It also provides essential insights into the contingency and unpredictability of the decolonisation process. Highly recommended." - Tony Chafer, University of Portsmouth "The principal expert on the history of Félix Houphouët-Boigny’s foreign policy and neocolonial entanglements has built on this excellence, and enlarged it towards a deeper understanding of the Ivorian founding father’s motives and strategies under late colonialism and as leader of the independent state. Marco Wyss thus created a milestone biography of Houphouët-Boigny: the first such book that is readable, concentrates on the important parts of the trajectory, and actually manages to capture the many nuances of this historical character." - Alexander Keese, University of Geneva "In his insightful biography of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Marco Wyss offers a nuanced assessment of a controversial figure in the post-World War II African decolonization movement. Promoting reformation rather than destruction of the French empire, the Côte d'Ivoire leader was cast as a sell-out by his detractors and credited by his admirers with forestalling the establishment of communism in Africa. This complex evaluation is an important and long overdue contribution to the debate." - Elizabeth Schmidt, Loyola University Maryland "Marco Wyss’s captivating and eminently readable biography skillfully navigates the polarized views of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivory Coast’s first and long-ruling president, to show his importance as an African leader of the decolonization and early postcolonial eras. Illustrating Houphouët-Boigny’s lifelong political flexibility, the book concisely yet thoroughly covers international and domestic themes." - Timothy Stapleton, University of Calgary