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In Idi Amin's Shadow is a rich social history examining Ugandan women's complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship to Amin's military state. Based on more than one hundred interviews with women who survived the regime, as well as a wide range of primary sources, this book reveals how the violence of Amin's militarism resulted in both opportunities and challenges for women. Some assumed positions of political power or became successful entrepreneurs, while others endured sexual assault or experienced the trauma of watching their brothers, husbands, or sons \"disappeared\" by the state's security forces. In Idi Amin's Shadow considers the crucial ways that gender informed and was informed by the ideology and practice of militarism in this period. By exploring this relationship, Alicia C. Decker offers a nuanced interpretation of Amin's Uganda and the lives of the women who experienced and survived its violence. Each chapter begins with the story of one woman whose experience illuminates some larger theme of the book. In this way, it becomes clear that the politics of military rule were highly relevant to women and gender relations, just as the politics of gender were central to militarism. By drawing upon critical security studies, feminist studies, and violence studies, Decker demonstrates that Amin's dictatorship was far more complex and his rule much more strategic than most observers have ever imagined.

In 1981 Filomina Chioma Steady boldly proclaimed that black women, particularly those from the African continent, were the original feminists. In her now classic anthology, The Black Woman Cross-Culturally, Steady argued that “true feminism” stemmed from “an actual experience of oppression, a lack of the socially prescribed means of ensuring one’s wellbeing, and a true lack of access to resources for survival” (36). In her mind, feminism was simply a reaction to oppression, one that resulted in “the development of greater resourcefulness for survival and greater self-reliance.” Two years later the budding Sierra Leonean anthropologist delivered a powerful keynote address on African feminism at a research conference at Howard University organized by the Association of Black Women Historians (Terborg-Penn 1996, xix). This lecture...

This article uses militarism as a lens through which to examine a fatal shooting that occurred on the campus of Purdue University in January 2014. Although each author experienced the violence differently, as they discuss in their respective sections, they collectively describe a campus enveloped in militarism. And while this militarism did not directly cause the shooting, they suggest that violence is normalized (and even celebrated) on college campuses in disturbing ways. This, they argue, is the specter of everyday militarism.

This article uses militarism as a lens through which to examine a fatal shooting that occurred on the campus of Purdue University in January 2014. Although each author experienced the violence differently, as they discuss in their respective sections, they collectively describe a campus enveloped in militarism. And while this militarism did not directly cause the shooting, they suggest that violence is normalized (and even celebrated) on college campuses in disturbing ways. This, they argue, is the specter of everyday militarism.

In this essay, the authors present a case study that demonstrates how graphic novels can be utilized in the history classroom. More specifically, they discuss the benefits (and challenges) of using comic books to teach undergraduates about war and violence. While much of their discussion focuses on the historical particularities of Uganda, their ideas and experiences are likely to resonate with a wide variety of educators, both within and outside the discipline of history. There are a number of lesser-known, but equally compelling texts that explore war, displacement, and genocide in a variety of different contexts. Thus far, very little has been written about these less familiar comic books. This essay introduces readers to one such work--\"Unknown Soldier,\" by Joshua Dysart and Alberto ponticelli, which the authors believe does an excellent job of complicating students' understanding of war and violence in Africa. (Contains 35 notes.)