New Books In French Studies

How did French colonial administrators, missionaries, and different groups of Africans interact with one another in colonial Senegal? In her new book, Faith in Empire: Religion, Politics, and Colonial Rule in French Senegal, 1880-1940 (Stanford University Press, 2013), historian Elizabeth Foster draws on a wealth of archival material to reveal the interests and negotiations of key powerbrokers in the colony from the end of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth. Emphasizing the heterogeneity of French rule and the significance of local agency in its various forms, Foster interrogates the relationship between metropole and colony while exploring a religious landscape in Senegal that included French, African, and metis Catholics; Muslims; and animists. The book’s chapters explore a variety of fascinating themes and events, from a scandal involving a nun accused of becoming pregnant in 1886, to the trial of an African accused of murdering a Wolof agent of the French empire, to the i