In this special feature on the blog, we’re highlighting recent book publications that have been submitted for review to Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. This week, we are pleased to present a short overview of Making and Unmaking Public Health in Africa: Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives, a volume of works edited by Ruth J. Prince and Rebecca Marsland. This book addresses the experience of African public health initiatives from numerous vantage points. Published by the Ohio University Press, a paperback version was released in December 2013. You can learn more about the book here: http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Making+and+Unmaking+Public+Health+in+Africa.

Book cover image via the Ohio University Press website.

Prince and Marsland’s edited collection was the result of a 2008 workshop at the University of Cambridge hosted by the Centre of African Studies and the Department of Social Anthropology. Africa has long served as an “arena” for discussions about global health, human rights, and humanitarian aid, but the notion of health-for-all is complicated against a backdrop of African state formation, international interventions, and transnational policies.

This text explores what public health means for clinical professionals, patients, government officials, and citizens throughout Africa. Instead of generalizing what the meaning of public health to these groups might be, this book aims to establish a rich, complex anthropology of African public health that weighs the importance of politics, culture, and local understanding to the definition and delivery of public health initiatives. The volume covers topics in numerous countries including Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania, and takes a blended historical-anthropological approach to studying public health.

These brief summaries are intended to give our readers a glimpse into the newest academic publications that we’re excited to discuss in our journal and with our followers on social media. For a full list of books that have been submitted for review at CMP, click this link: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11013-014-9383-x. This page also has information regarding the submissions process for authors who’d like their academic releases reviewed in the journal, as well as information for those interested in composing a review. For more information on this process, please contact managing editor Brandy Schillace.