Gufu Oba's African Environmental Crisis is a compelling study that analyzes the influence of imperial science in the development of Britain's East African colonies. It focuses on the ‘African environmental crisis’, a hypothesis held by scientists and colonial officers throughout the twentieth century that assumed African land-use practices were contributing to soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, desiccation, and the spread of insect vectors. This hypothesis held that if these practices were left unchecked, environmental and economic devastation would result. Oba refutes this assumption through a detailed study of the era's scientific research, arguing instead that colonial scientists generated inaccurate views of African landscapes by drawing on flawed assumptions and developing research programs hindered by their short-term focus. By linking environment, science, and development, the book makes a strong contribution to both the fields of African environmental history and the history of science.

Oba's book follows a number of scholarly works that have addressed the mythology of these destruction narratives, including Fairhead and Leach's Misreading the African Landscape and Bassett and Crummey's African Savannas.Footnote ¹ Oba's approach is unique in its focus on the role of imperial science. He argues that the underlying drivers of the hypothesis were ‘sociological factors, as opposed to ecological ones alone’ (11). The scientific research of the colonial era effectively began with a false assumption: that environmental changes stemmed from African mismanagement rather than natural climate or ecological change. The short-term nature of imperial scientific experimentation exacerbated this misconception. Perpetuated by this research, the myth shaped development practices throughout the colonial period and beyond.

A notable strength of Oba's book is its thorough, detailed analysis of imperial scientific research in British East Africa. The author does an excellent job of discussing the development of research science in the region, its problematic origins, and the tensions between research and applied science. Chapter 5 is perhaps the most innovative part of the book. Here, the author skillfully re-analyzes scientific studies published in the East African Agricultural and Forestry Journal between the 1930s and 1960s. One of these studies, for example, investigated the efficacy of inorganic and organic fertilizers on soya, groundnut, sorghum, and maize yields in Tanganyika over a four-year period. These studies had been conducted on the premise of equilibrium, that environmental processes are self-regulating unless disrupted by some form of disturbance, such as land-use activities (100). Oba rereads these studies from the assumption of disequilibrium, that environmental processes are dynamic and changing. Hence, factors such as rainfall variability become part of the equation. By changing the underlying assumption, Oba not only challenges the conclusions of these published studies, but also proves that a misunderstanding of climatological and ecological patterns contributed to decades of poorly informed development strategies.

Oba also draws an important distinction between imperial and administrative science. Whereas imperial science reflected the work of field and lab researchers, administrative science translated these findings to the applied world of colonial administrators. Oba refers to it as ‘an applied form of social science . . . action-oriented and [relying] on expert knowledge for planning and implementing programs’ (141). Chapter 7 does an excellent job of showing how colonial actors (officers, judges, chiefs, etc.) bridged scientific approaches with local development initiatives in ways that were flexible and able to reflect shifts in colonial priorities and policies (141). This is a useful way to remember that imperial science was never implemented in a pure form, but rather through a process of translation and negotiation by colonial officers and local communities.

The book does have some shortcomings. One is the lack of voice given to African actors. A key argument of the book is that imperial science — and the notion of the African environmental crisis — failed to take into account African knowledge and expertise and, as a result, fundamentally misread landscape changes and the management practices of local farmers. The book, however, does not draw much on the voices of the colonized in making its counterargument, nor does it develop examples of successful African land-use practices. Considering that much of the recent scholarship on African history of science and environment, including Webel's The Politics of Disease Control and Dlamini's Safari Nation, has emphasized the voice and agency of local communities, this approach may leave some readers wanting more.Footnote ²

The book also stops short of challenging the notion that only imperial knowledge can be ‘scientific’. The thoughtful discussion of imperial science and administrative science neglects to mention that much of the knowledge generated by African farmers and ranchers was also scientific, based in experimentation and observations over long periods of time. Though the book argues for the value of African expertise, this is referred to as ‘indigenous knowledge’, a category that posits Africa-produced expertise as valuable, yet nonscientific and somehow other. Identifying African knowledge as rightfully scientific in its production would go a long way toward recognizing its value and potential for bringing about positive change.

Lastly, the first two chapters in Part III could do a better job of connecting the cases (tsetse fly and locust control) with the overall theme of the book. Neither of the two adequately develop how perceived mismanagement of the landscape by Africans contributed to these problems. Rather they focus on how imperial scientists tried to develop management strategies for these plagues.

Notwithstanding these points, African Environmental Crisis is a strong addition to the literature on African environmental history and the history of science. Its analysis of the African environmental crisis and the flawed assumptions of imperial science is relevant not only for historians but also those involved in present-day development work. I recommend it to those interested in learning more about the promise and peril of scientific research in Africa.