Jeffrey S. Ahlman's book, Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana, provides a lucid and richly interwoven analysis of Nkrumahism as an ideology. It explores cohesive yet diverse formulations of Nkrumahism — which is named for Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first independent president — within an ever-changing socio-political, economic, and cultural milieu in and beyond Ghana from the 1950s to mid-1960s. Shaped by many competing and uneven rubrics in a national, continental, and global Cold War context, Nkrumahism was a ‘philosophy of decolonization’, a form of pan-Africanism, a provisional concept, and also a method to communicate the shifting positionality of Ghana and other emergent African states in a postcolonial and international order (5). Without privileging the conventional state-centric focus on the dynamic leader's actions and that of his party, the Convention People's Party, Ahlman vividly captures the lived experiences of Ghanaians in several spheres of life during Nkrumah's political rise and dominance. The result of this approach is a brilliantly written study that meticulously uncovers the complexities that guided Kwame Nkrumah and his party. Perhaps more importantly, Ahlman reveals the ways in which the wider publics in the country lived, interpreted, and negotiated the parameters of Nkrumahism as an epistemological paradigm of political and social life in Ghana.

The book is organized into six chapters with a useful Conclusion. The first two chapters document the ways in which local and global forces interacted during the inter-and post-war eras, often in competing ways, to inculcate in Nkrumah and his contemporaries a political vision for Africa's and, in particular, colonial Ghana's, transition to independence. This period was marked by a particularly complex and volatile political landscape in which Nkrumah, his party, British colonial officials, opposition groups, and the wider populace negotiated and argued over visions of the future, as well as over ambitious development projects to construct the new nation. A case study that focuses on the city of Tema provides a window into how local communities actively engaged the state's development schemes, as they contested resettlement in similar yet contrasting ways to other regions of the country (68–73).

Chapters Three and Four document the central role that youth and notions of citizenship played in the national context. Programs such as the Builders Brigade and Ghana Young Pioneers emerged to promote the contributions of youth to the nation, and these groups coalesced around new types of discipline, order, and national activism, all of which became central to the political workings of the new state. Young people simultaneously utilized their involvement in these state-run projects as critical avenues for upward mobility and socio-cultural development. Moreover, the gender dynamics and generational dimensions of these youth projects generated new challenges and critiques from the wider populace over what constituted social responsibility and the transition to adulthood.

Chapters Five and Six explore the daily work environments of Ghanaians, as Nkrumah's policies became increasingly authoritarian during the early- to mid-1960s. Ahlman uncovers how gender dynamics intersected with notions of productivity within the nation-building project. He draws on the Bureau of African Affairs as a central case study for illuminating the innerworkings of the ‘day-to-day maintenance of the African revolution’ (158). Ahlman shows that these women functioned as the ‘administrative lifeblood of the bureau's institutional mission’ and were significant to the organization's success, even as they confronted various forms of workplace discrimination (162).

The ways in which ordinary Ghanaians made sense of the socio-political uncertainties of Nkrumah's final years in power, those of one-party rule, are central to the last chapter. The author traces how and why vocal critiques of the state manifested themselves; Ahlman also explores individual perspectives on citizen-state relations, social contracts, and the politics of reciprocal obligation. The Conclusion succinctly brings together the thematic import of the preceding chapters, reiterating the fundamentals of Nkrumahism as a phenomenon that was deeply intertwined with the moving and shifting target of decolonization — locally, nationally, and across the continent.

Although a substantial body of material on the Nkrumah era exists, a comprehensive, bottom-up analysis of the multifaceted ways in which Ghana's new citizens negotiated the parameters of Nkrumahism has been unevenly examined in the literature. The great strength of this book lies in the author's premise that Nkrumahism was not simply an ideological framework and nation-building project; rather, it was an experience that directed and reoriented the livelihoods of people across the nation. As Ahlman shows, those citizens continuously re-examined and contested their relationship with the state, while also managing the shifting uncertainties and potentialities that guided the country's move towards, and realization of, self-rule. Ahlman's deconstruction of Nkrumahism serves as a powerful analytical tool that successfully guides his treatment of the phenomenon in its varied forms throughout the book.

While the study explores some well-known developments of the era, it does so from an original, precise, and illuminating perspective. Specialists and non-specialists alike will find this innovative book to be accessible and nuanced, with new and insightful material produced by its disaggregation of a seemingly familiar and complete history. This invaluable book sheds remarkable light on old and new themes in mid-twentieth century Ghana's — and Africa's — larger decolonization efforts.