GREGORY MANN. Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century. (Politics, History, and Culture.) Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 2006. Pp. ix, 333. $23.95

Abstract

Thousands of African colonial subjects fought and died in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North Africa for the French Empire in both the world wars. Several accounts already exist of the familiar and often highly celebratory story of valiant West African soldiers fighting to defend France in World War I, and to liberate France and protect its overseas empire, especially in North Africa and Asia, in World War II. Yet previous historians have often reduced the fascinating story of the tirailleurs sénégalais to the soldiers' unquestionable bravery or focused on the leading and crucial role that West African veterans played in francophone Africa's successful post–World War II struggles for independence. In this exhaustively researched, meticulously documented, and elegantly written study, Gregory Mann offers a much more nuanced and richly textured history of the numerous, complex, and fluid relationships between West African soldiers and the French, both military and civilian, throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on abundant archival materials, personal correspondence, oral histories, interviews, and published accounts, the book makes a major contribution to our understanding of West African and French colonial history as well as providing valuable insight into the often ambiguous and troubled interactions between contemporary France and its former colonial subjects. In addition, the author masterfully weaves local, regional, colonial, and postcolonial histories into a cohesive unit, simultaneously raising questions about many seemingly well-defined concepts, including colony, colonialism, postcolonialism, nation, state, and empire.