Having previously worked as a designer of projects related to global tourism, Joseph Godlewski explains he was originally drawn to the Bight of Biafra by the Tinapa Free Zone and Resort which opened in 2007 outside Calabar, Nigeria. Though largely deserted and derelict now, he was surprised to find that locals still expressed great pride and hope for the project. He posits that Tinapa stands at the end of centuries-long processes involving architecture, trade and global engagement, rather than an external imposition. Godlewski employs the concept of entanglement as a way of thinking about the intersection of peoples, spaces and time at Calabar, drawing on the work of Duanfang Lu, Achille Mbembe, Nicholas Thomas and Prita Meier.

The book is divided into five chronological periods, each defined by what Godlewski refers to as a ‘paradigmatic space’. The paradigmatic space of the first period, from the early sixteenth century until 1729, is the walled compound of the majority Efik culture. Its malleability, impermanent construction materials, relative autonomy and the frequent historical conflicts between Efik communities are all understood to be reflective of the decentralized political organization that predominated. During the second period, 1730–1805, Efik society transformed into larger and more diverse communities that competed ferociously with one another for control of the rapidly expanding slave trade. It is a period characterized by the rise of the Ekpe, or ‘Leopard’, Society, which regulated relations between communities and with Europeans. Not only is Ekpe understood to have managed relations between these populations, and the spaces they inhabited, but it also possessed its own spaces – for instance, the Ekpe lodge usually positioned on the waterfront as the focus of trade. From 1805 until the imposition of colonial rule, Godlewski uses the paradigm of the ‘offshore’, defined as ‘a terraqueous network of ships, canoes, plantations, and prefabricated wood houses intricately linked to the Atlantic World…’ (p. 127), which prevailed as the slave trade gave way to the palm oil trade. This network developed in part as a means of holding onto local sovereignty as power became concentrated in the hands of a few rulers; Europeans were not permitted to settle on land here as they did, most notably, in Ghana. While Europeans inhabited vessels moored in the rivers, imported prefabricated wood and iron two-storey houses inhabited by local elites proliferated in the towns. In the late nineteenth century, the paradigmatic space shifts to the colonial ‘enclave’. Godlewski is less interested in how enclaves were intended to separate populations, but rather in how these semi-autonomous compounds ironically resonated with historic Efik conceptions of space. While colonial decrees and tropical medicine dictated segregation, the practicalities of production, trade and administration resulted in the entangling of spaces, architecture and populations in practice. The final chapter is focused on the post-colonial creation of Tinapa Free Zone and Resort outside Old Calabar. Godlewski considers Tinapa as an extension of past spatial practices. For instance, the site’s walls ultimately recall the Efik compound, and the emphasis on trade and foreign engagement resonates with the long history of the region.

Ironically, although it is Tinapa that first drew the author to the area, to my mind this is the least convincing chapter. To me, the formal continuities of Tinapa with historic architecture are a little thin. What is more convincing is the argument that, despite its seeming failure, locals still embrace the idea of Tinapa because of their long history of trade, global engagement, resistance to external control and decentralized politics. On another level, in this chapter as well as previous ones, I think there are frequent commonalities to be found with neighbouring Cameroon. For example, one could draw some strong continuities with neighbouring Douala in terms of prefabricated structures and their furnishings. Likewise, the establishment of government and mission enclaves on hills, with Ekpe lodge and local leadership clustered below along the waterfront reminds me of the Cameroon Grassfields as presented by Dominique Malaquais, to say nothing of Christian missions finding their settlement sites to be the disposal grounds of the corpses of undesirables.

My criticisms aside, this book is a complex and thoughtful one. I appreciate its attention to continuities across time and the bridging of eras. As a result, one sees how the local milieu responded to international events, and how the urban environment of today’s Calabar is the result of local actors engaging with each other as well as with external forces. Among the most fascinating aspects in my opinion is Godlewski’s understanding of prefabricated structures not just as foreign imports denoting high status, but as elements incorporated into the local urban fabric, encircled by the walls of the compound and often located adjacent to the Ekpe lodge. Meanwhile, the multitude of furnishings collected in these structures are cleverly reinterpreted as a form of Wunderkammer. Understanding the Bight of Biafra as an active participant in global interests rather than a passive receiver of the foreign is this text’s greatest strength.