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Howard Wolpe, Urban Politics in Nigeria; A Study of Port Harcourt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, xiv 413 pp., maps. $ 16.75

Howard Wolpe, Urban Politics in Nigeria; A Study of Port Harcourt. Berkeley: University of... 249 BOOK REVIEWS Howard Wolpe, Urban Politics in Nigeria; A Study of Port Harcourt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, xiv 413 pp., maps. $ 16.75. Empiricist political analysts of Africa, frustrated by the "nations," have turned to the cities to find the enduring dynamics of social conflict, the "real" stuff of politics. Wolpe's book, from fieldwork in 1963-65, thus joins a rapidly growing shelf of recent studies on cities from Ouagadougou to Nairobi. It is distinguished from them, both for better and worse, by being more historical than synchronic, more leadership- than issue-oriented, more concerned with concepts than with the case for its own sake, more finely-detailed than flavorful. Port Harcourt, Nigeria's second port, is a "new" city established on an inhospitable site, bought in 1913 from nearby Diobu Ibo and Okrika Ijaw villagers, to facilitate the evacuation of coal from the Udi Plateau. Inade- quately planned but ruled by railwaymen in its early years, in 1949 it become the first Nigerian governmental instrumentality with an elected majority. The Town Council had four severe disabilities, however, which in retrospect con- demned it: it controlled only a part of the total area of the growing city; it had http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Asian and African Studies (in 2002 continued as African and Asian Studies) Brill

Howard Wolpe, Urban Politics in Nigeria; A Study of Port Harcourt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, xiv 413 pp., maps. $ 16.75

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1976 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0021-9096
eISSN
1568-5217
DOI
10.1163/156852176X00496
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

249 BOOK REVIEWS Howard Wolpe, Urban Politics in Nigeria; A Study of Port Harcourt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, xiv 413 pp., maps. $ 16.75. Empiricist political analysts of Africa, frustrated by the "nations," have turned to the cities to find the enduring dynamics of social conflict, the "real" stuff of politics. Wolpe's book, from fieldwork in 1963-65, thus joins a rapidly growing shelf of recent studies on cities from Ouagadougou to Nairobi. It is distinguished from them, both for better and worse, by being more historical than synchronic, more leadership- than issue-oriented, more concerned with concepts than with the case for its own sake, more finely-detailed than flavorful. Port Harcourt, Nigeria's second port, is a "new" city established on an inhospitable site, bought in 1913 from nearby Diobu Ibo and Okrika Ijaw villagers, to facilitate the evacuation of coal from the Udi Plateau. Inade- quately planned but ruled by railwaymen in its early years, in 1949 it become the first Nigerian governmental instrumentality with an elected majority. The Town Council had four severe disabilities, however, which in retrospect con- demned it: it controlled only a part of the total area of the growing city; it had

Journal

Journal of Asian and African Studies (in 2002 continued as African and Asian Studies) – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1976

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