In the village of Umuchieze, Mbaise, in Eastern Nigeria, there existed an age group known as ndi-French (‘the French’ in Igbo), which, Korieh reports, took its name from a ‘special event’ in the village's history: World War Two (252). The case of Umuchieze represents just one of myriad ways in which this global war ‘was Africa's world war too’, a fact which, as Nigeria and World War II reminds us, ‘is largely forgotten’. Indeed, African voices have long been ignored in scholarship regarding the war, and the experience of individual soldiers or civilians in the war is often subordinated to separate narratives, such the rise of nationalism or organised labour. Korieh's Nigeria documents a wide range of such voices, excelling particularly in exploring the lives and economic activities of Eastern Nigerian civilians. ‘Will you not understand that we Africans are now too good for half-baked measure?’ exclaimed one exasperated petitioner from Itu, as they challenged the District Officer's use of racial stereotypes (67).

Commanding a wealth of empirical data about the wartime economy and labour, Korieh is nonetheless attentive to the limits of colonial records preserved in the Nigerian National Archives. A typical example can be found in the case of unemployed veterans who began to absent themselves from the Ogwashi-Uku and Agbo resettlement offices of Asa Division in Eastern Nigeria – one 1947 report admitted that 397 men were not actively in touch with resettlement officers, of whom an unknown number had left to search for work in urban centres such as Lagos or Ibadan and had disappeared from the archival record as ‘unaccounted for’ (221). Faced with this unevenness or paucity in the archives of colonial civil and military institutions, particularly in terms of locating or charting individual lives, Korieh has drawn on letters of petition. Nigeria interweaves such letters, authored by divergent individuals across social classes, into an account that views the war and its military dimensions in terms of its impact on the ‘home front’. This latter concept has long been neglected in the study of Africa and the war, and Nigeria offers one of the most extended existing accounts of an African ‘home front’ currently available in scholarship on the war. While the book covers an impressive array of social activities and categories, it is particularly focused on the social and economic history of the conflict within Nigeria.

Korieh presents a convincing picture of the sheer disruption caused to seemingly disparate areas of everyday life. Progressive legislative interventions, such as the successive Defence Regulations issued by the colonial government, sanctioned official scrutiny and control of transport (63), food production (150), and coercive labour recruitment, most extensively documented on the tin mines of the Jos plateau (138). ‘Sometimes’, Korieh observes, ‘a father was recruited along with his sons [to the mines], forcing women to assume new roles in their respective families’ (154). Hardship continued after the end of the war; soldiers often returned to joblessness (210), and government assistance proved insufficient; a 1947 report highlighted that many veterans had spent all their funds and could not afford to purchase the seed-yams necessary to begin farming (221). Ultimately, Korieh confirms the position of historians such as Olusanya and Killingray, who have found little evidence of effective political organising on the part of Nigerian ex-servicemen.

Despite the considerable suffering, many Nigerians professed their support for the British war effort, especially in its early years. ‘Oddly enough’, Korieh informs us, ‘Nigerians wrote passionate letters in support of a faraway king and agonized over a war far beyond their borders’ (2). This Nigerian support for the war effort was complex and conditional. Pioneering RAF Officer and pilot Peter Thomas, who travelled from Nigeria to join up in Britain, petitioned the colonial government, professing that ‘nothing but death will deter me from taking an active part’ in a struggle against forces ‘threatening to deprive the world of civilization’ (133). Nigerians, Korieh contends, saw military enlistment as ‘proof of their loyalty to the empire … intellectual capability, and self-actualization’ (124). The financial contributions of Nigerians rarely appear in general histories of World War Two, including some £23.3 million in gifts, £10.7 million in interest-free loans, and £14 million in low-interest loans, which came from all levels of society, ranging from Emirs to church associations (113). The general outline of these efforts has been described in research by Clarke and Mordi respectively, but Korieh's work integrates this narrative into a wider analysis of the Nigerian ‘home front’ during the war.

Nigeria represents a significant addition to the historiography of World War Two in Africa, particularly in its use of African petitions, but also in its analysis of gender. It is strongest on eastern Nigeria, an area not widely examined in the historiography of colonial military service, and on the economic and social conditions of the ‘home front’. Korieh's study will be of interest to historians of both World Wars in Africa, as well as Nigeria specialists, particularly in relation to its account of gender, and Nigerian responses to the war. Nigeria should also attract a readership among scholars of African conflict, security and militaries in post-colonial Africa, particularly in relation to the social impact of warfare.