Whereas recent decades have witnessed increasing consideration of sex and gender in social science and area studies scholarship, there has been only limited attention to the roles and positioning of masculinities, and to the gendered experiences of men and boys. With few noteworthy exceptions, when masculinities have been integrated into social science research, most theorizing has been based on Western idea(l)s of manhood, vis-à-vis a persistent lack of empirical and conceptual work about non-Western/white men and masculinities. As a result, only insufficient attention is being paid to cultural and geographical contingencies of masculinities across time and space, including within African countries, and especially from the empirically grounded perspectives of men in these settings themselves.

Daniel Jordan Smith's To Be a Man Is Not a One-day Job stands in stark contrast to this, by extensively incorporating the lived realities of Nigerian men into his detailed and embedded analysis of the geometry of masculinity, money and intimacy in contemporary Nigeria. In the book, Smith draws on an impressive wealth of empirical data and observations derived from ethnographic research conducted over a period of twenty-five years. The central task of the book is thereby to comprehend the intertwined and deeply complex relationships between ideals of masculinities, money and intimacy, or rather sociality more generally. This task, as Smith argues, is not only necessary for understanding men's lived realities (p. 26) – including the expectations that society and also men themselves place upon them – but more broadly has implications for understanding the dynamics of social life and social change in contemporary Nigeria.

In Nigeria, as indeed elsewhere globally, these intersections and constructions of manhood and sociality manifest in different spaces and phases of life, including in the context of broader family and clan structures; marriage and love; in the workplace; but also relationally among and between male peers. The central argument of the book – that ‘to be a man is not a one-day job’ – is thus poignantly reflected in its title. Previous scholarship on constructions of masculinities on the African continent – including my own work – frequently tends to emphasize that the roles and expectations of protecting and providing for one's family and community constitute the epitome of hegemonic masculinity constructions. This premise is grounded in the assumption that once men have attained a certain socio-economic status, have built a home and started a family for which they can provide materially and economically, they have successfully attained manhood and have become a man in the hegemonic sense. Smith's critical exploration of men's lived realities in Nigeria, however, further complexifies these presumptions, thereby contributing to our understanding of the dynamic character of gender identities and relations in a constantly evolving environment. While in Nigeria, as elsewhere globally, ‘marriage and parenthood remain the sine qua non of full personhood’ (p. 17), including manhood, the process of becoming (and being) a man does not necessarily stop here, but instead also requires, for instance, to bury one's father. As one of the author's interlocutors was told by his male peers: ‘You are now fully a man because you have successfully buried your father.’ This evolving process of becoming and being a man as a lifelong task is aptly reflected in the structure of the book, which illustratively takes the reader through the principal phases and arenas of men's lives: the transition from boyhood to adulthood; marriage and courtship; finding employment and making a living; relationships and politics among and between men; and, finally, attaining the status of an elder. Underpinning these interrelated aspects of life are the expectations placed on men to constantly perform and provide along the intersections of masculinity, money and intimacy.

One of the book's most significant strengths is undoubtedly its incredibly rich empirical footing, derived from more than two decades of carefully embedded and relational research with men in different phases of life. Illuminating the lived realities of men themselves and integrating these into an emerging body of scholarship on gender in African studies certainly stand out as one of the book's primary and long-lasting contributions. Arguably, however, Smith's exploration relies a little too heavily on certain socio-economic demographics, namely middle-class men in (semi-)urban settings, even though a diversity of perspectives is reflected throughout the book. Further, while certainly doing important work of carefully engaging with men's responsibilities and expectations, including specific challenges associated with this, the book falls somewhat short in more critically juxtaposing these difficulties with the men's relative positions of power and privilege. While Smith certainly does pay attention to these seeming paradoxes and dilemmas, a more transparent engagement with the vast gender inequalities that continue to perpetuate gender and social relations and structures in Nigeria could have opened the book up for an even more relational and hierarchical engagement of gender in this context.