Decolonization in East Africa was more than a political event: it was a step towards economic self-determination. In this innovative book, historian and anthropologist Kevin Donovan analyses the contradictions of economic sovereignty and citizenship in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, placing money, credit, and smuggling at the center of the region's shifting fortunes. Using detailed archival and ethnographic research undertaken across the region, Donovan reframes twentieth century statecraft and argues that self-determination was, at most, partially fulfilled, with state monetary infrastructures doing as much to produce divisions and inequality as they did to produce nations. A range of dissident practices, including smuggling and counterfeiting, arose as people produced value on their own terms. Weaving together discussions of currency controls, bank nationalizations and coffee smuggling with wider conceptual interventions, Money, Value and the State traces the struggles between bankers, bureaucrats, farmers and smugglers that shaped East Africa's postcolonial political economy.

Honorable mention, 2025 Sharon Stephens Prize, The American Ethnological Society

Honorable Mention, 2025 Presidents Book Award, Social Science History Association

‘There is nothing else like this; it is an enormous contribution.’

Luise White Source: Journal of Social History

‘Donovan’s approach is anthropological and historical: his interest is in the way citizens respond to states’ attempts to impose a set of values on their economic activity which at best correspond to only some of the values they themselves hold … Donovan’s argument for paying as much attention to banks as to political parties and institutions, and for doing so on a regional as much as on a national scale, is convincingly made.’

Colin Leys Source: Review of African Political Economy

‘Written with great verve and clarity, and offering valuable insights into any number of questions, Money, Value, and The State is a welcome addition to the literature on the potency of currency as a social, ethical, and political form. The methodological innovation of the work is especially important. Drawing on both ethnographic encounters and historical archives, and offering a powerful comparative example that covers East Africa as a complex region, Money, Value, and The State should find a wide readership.’

Brad Weiss - Professor of Anthropology, College of William & Mary

‘Kevin P. Donovan offers a compelling new way to think about statecraft in East Africa after independence: as an attempt to monopolize value. This novel analysis places money and financial institutions at the heart of policies aimed to change the behaviour of citizens of new states. Donovan’s book shows how the control of money became a field for contested ideas of personal and national sovereignty - a site for attempts by both people and government to imagine the future.’

Justin Willis - Professor of History, Durham University

‘… this book sheds new light on the ways historians should reconceptualize the relationship between citizenship and postcolonial states to include monetary values … Recommended.’

A. S. MacKinnon Source: Choice

‘As an anthropologist, the author provides a rich historical ethnography of the social order produced by postcolonial political economy, shifting our gaze to the struggles between bankers, bureaucrats, farmers, and smugglers. … The main richness of the analysis is that it illustrates the mutually constitutive nature of the social order produced by the three post-colonial monetary regimes. … Donovan argues convincingly that the postcolonial political economy produced divisions and inequalities, as much as it produced the nation.’

Lena Gutheil Source: Politique étrangère

‘Donovan’s argument for paying as much attention to banks as to political parties and institutions, and for doing so on a regional as much as on a national scale, is convincingly made.’

Colin Leys Source: Review of African Political Economy

‘… a rigorous exploration of the economic dimensions of decolonization in East Africa... Donovan offers East Africanists a fresh perspective on how both the state and the people understood self-determination. Moreover, by illuminating the historical complexities of postcolonial economic strategies, the book encourages broader discussions about the lasting ramifications of colonial legacies on contemporary economic conditions in the region. “Money, Value, and the State” is essential reading for anyone working on decolonization, political economy, monetary policy, and economic development.’

Muey Ching Saeteurn Source: American Historical Review

‘… a compelling and original work that deepens our understanding of decolonisation as both a political and economic project. By centring currency, credit, and everyday practices of valuation across formal and informal sectors, Donovan reveals the fragile and negotiated character of economic sovereignty in the era immediately after “flag independence” in east Africa. The book should become essential reading for historians of twentieth-century Africa and scholars of monetary history. At the same time, its detailed examination of multinational banks, currency policy and corporate adaptation offers fresh perspectives for business and economic historians of the Global South.’

Mariusz Lukasiewicz Source: Business History

‘Donovan closely attends to dissident monetary practices, such as smuggling, counterfeiting and everyday arbitrage, and argues that these unsettle analyses that treat sovereignty as either coherent or totalizing … This reframing complicates the still common presumption in African political economy that coercion is the dominant mode of postcolonial rule. Here, domination works through shifting and varying notions of valuation and access and the moral economy of everyday calculation. The chapters are tightly argued and empirically rich … Money, Value, and the State is a vital text that will reward scholars across economic history, fiscal sociology and anthropology. It belongs on syllabi precisely because it models how to integrate archives and conceptual development while centring everyday, rather than statist, practices. For policymakers and central bankers accustomed to treating money as neutral infrastructure, it is an instructive, and humbling, read.’

Matthew Sterling Benson-Strohmayer Source: Africa

‘… Donovan’s book poses important questions about the extended horizon of decolonisation, the deeper dynamics of economic turmoil and the shape of comparative analysis. It is exhaustively researched and cited, novel in both its approach and theorisation, and timely in its application to current events, including, it would seem, events beyond the boundaries of East Africa. The evidence he uses is primarily historical, but the conceptual apparatus is drawn primarily from contemporary economic anthropology and economic sociology. For anyone interested in the tangled political economies of post-independence African countries, Donovan provides us with a number of modular concepts, such as the "moneychanger state” and the "credible citizen”, with wide analytic purchase.’

Jeremy L. Jones Source: Journal of Southern African Studies