Dam for Africa Akosombo Stories from Ghana

This is a detailed and fascinating case study in the research field of international dam and hydropower plant construction.

To say that this book caters to scholars with a broad range of interests and opens several areas for further research is an understatement. With the diversity of sources, familiar and new untapped archives, such as those of the Volta River Authority and Electricity Company of Ghana, oral histories, and qualitative and quantitative surveys, A Dam for Africa is a new and refreshing perspective on the VRP.

By approaching the Akosombo Dam as a Cold War project built through skillful negotiation between the Americans and Soviets, Miescher is able to construct a truly international history of development that depicts the geopolitical significance of dam building for a wide array of global actors in the mid-twentieth century. His inclusion of voices from the diaspora allow us to see the dam as a truly pan-Africanist project. Finally, Miescher's work refines a body of scholarship that emphasizes the repressive, statist aspects of postcolonial development agendas.

The book will surely become a classic on the history of dams and development, postcolonial nation-building, Cold War politics and electrification, as well as, more generally, on how to write nuanced, non- extractive histories that many people-those affected by such histories as well as students sitting in classrooms in a faraway continent-will value and learn from.

A Dam for Africa is a monumental work and a wonderful addition to the rich literature on dams published in the last two decades.

Miescher brings a fresh perspective to the debate on large dams. The depth of research, both archival and ethnographic, is extraordinary and emerges from Mieshcher's two-decade-long relationship with Ghana, some of which can be seen in the book's length and extensive endnotes-which make it an approachable read.