John Kwadwo Osei-Tutu is Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. He is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana.Victoria Ellen Smith is a Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Ghana. She is Founding Curator of the Adu Boahen Memorial Library and Archive.

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• 1. Introduction: Interpreting West Africa's European Fortifications.- 2. Grossfriedrichsburg, the First German Colony in Africa?: Brandenburg-Prussia, Atlantic entanglements and national memory.- 3. 'Far from my native land, and far from you': reimagining the British at Cape Coast Castle in the nineteenth century.- 4. Viewed from a Distance: eighteenth-century printed images of fortifications on the coast of West Africa.- 5. Illusions of Grandeur and Protection? Perceptions and (mis)representations of the defensive efficacy of European-built Fortifications on the Gold Coast, 17th–early 19th Centuries.- 6. Female Agency in a Cultural Confluence: Women, trade and politics in seventeenth and eighteenth century Gold Coast society.- 7. Fort Metal Cross: commercial epicentre of the British on the Gold Coast.- 8. European Fortifications in West Africa as Architectural Containers and Oppressive Contraptions.- 9. A Theatre of Memory of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Cape Coast Castle and its Museum.- 10. Diplomacy, Identity and Appropriation of the "Door of No Return": President Barack Obama and family in Ghana and the Cape Coast Castle, 2009.- 11. Re-Creating Pre-Colonial Forts and Castles: heritage policies and restoration practices in the Gold Coast/Ghana, 1945 to 1970s.