Allen Isaacman
Allen Isaacman is an American historian specializing in the social history of Southern Africa. He is a Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. In 2015, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1][2]
Education and career
Isaacman earned his B.A. at the City College of New York in 1964. He next studied African History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under Jan Vansina and Philip D. Curtin, earning an M.A. in 1966 and a PhD in 1970. That same year, he joined the faculty in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota. In 2001, he became a Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.
From 1978 to 1980, Isaacman was the Chaired Professor of Mozambican History at Eduardo Mondlane University, located in Maputo, Mozambique. From 1988 to 1998, he served as the Director of MacArthur Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability and Justice at the University of Minnesota and retained that role, from 1998 to 2011, as the program transitioned to become the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC).[2] Meanwhile, from 1997 to 1998, he was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Zimbabwe, in Harare, Zimbabwe, and in 2009 was named an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Western Cape, located in Cape Town, South Africa.
Academic awards and honors
Isaacman awards includes the National Defense and Education Act, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the African Studies Association (ASA), the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Gulbenkian Foundation Fellowship, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation,[3] the U.S. Department of Education (Fulbright), the MacArthur Foundation, and the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His 1972 book, Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution, The Zambezi Prazos, 1750-1902, won the Melville J. Herskovits Award as the most distinguished publication on African Studies for the year 1972, while the 2013 book which he coauthored, Dams, Displacement and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007, won both the Herskovits Prize[4] and the Martin Klein award from the American Historical Association (AHA). In 2013, Isaacman received the Distinguished Africanist Award from the African Studies Association.[5]
Selected publications
Monographs
- Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution, The Zambezi Prazos, 1750-1902 (University of Wisconsin Press, June 1972).[6]
- The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique: The Zambezi Valley, 1850-1921 (Heinemann and University of California Press, 1976) Translated into Portuguese in 1979.[7][8]
- A Luta Continua: Creating a New Society in Mozambique (Fernand Braudel Center, SUNY, 1978).[9]
- Co-authored with Barbara Isaacma, Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution: 1900-1982 (Westview Press, 1983).[10]
- Co-authored with Fred Cooper, Florencia E. Mallon, Steve J. Stern, and William Roseberry, Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).[11][12]
- Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique 1938-1961 (Heinemann, 1996).[13][14]
- Slavery and Beyond: The Making of Men and Chikunda Ethnic Identity in the Unstable World of South Central Africa, 1750-1920 (Heinemann, 2005).[15]
- Co-authored with Barbara Isaacman, Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007 (Ohio University Press, 2013)[16][17]
- Co-authored with Barbara Isaacman, Samora Machel: A Life Cut Short (Ohio University, Press 2020)[18][19]
References
- "Allen F. Isaacman". American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
- "Allen Isaacman". College of Liberal Arts.
- Niemela, Jennifer. "Historian gets elite fellowship". The Minnesota Daily.
- "Herskovits Award Winners". African Studies Association Portal - ASA - ASA. 2 May 2013. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
- "Distinguished Africanist Award Winners". African Studies Association - ASA. 8 April 2013.
- Opello, Walter C. (1974). "Review of Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution, the Zambezi prazos, 1750-1902; Portuguese Africa: A Handbook; Portuguese Africa and the West". The Journal of Modern African Studies. 12 (3): 487–491. doi:10.1017/S0022278X00009757. ISSN 0022-278X. JSTOR 159946.
- Gupta, Anirudha (January 1979). "Book Reviews : Allen F. Isaacman (in collaboration with Barbara Isaacman). The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique: The Zambesi Valley, 1850-1921. Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, 1976. Pp. xxiv+232. Price $13.75. George W. Shepherd, Jr. Anti-Apartheid: Transnational Conflict and Western Policy in the Liberation of South Africa. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977. Studies in Human Rights, No. 3. Pp. xii+246. Price $15.95". International Studies. 18 (1): 120–122. doi:10.1177/002088177901800116. ISSN 0020-8817.
- Wright, Marcia (1978). "Allen Isaacman. The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique: Anti-Colonial Activity in the Zambesi Valley, 1850-1921. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976. xxvi + 267 pp. Maps, tables, appendices, bibliography, index. $13.75". ASA Review of Books. 4: 22–23. doi:10.1017/S0364168600051306. ISSN 0364-1686. S2CID 255893369.
- Chilcote, Ronald H. (1980). "Socialist Transformation in Mozambique". Africa Today. 27 (2): 55–57. ISSN 0001-9887. JSTOR 4185925.
- WhitakerSpring 1984, Jennifer Seymour (28 January 2009). "Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900-1982" (Foreign Affairs Magazine). ISSN 0015-7120.
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(help) - Gebissa, Ezekiel (1995). "Review of Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America". African Economic History (23): 154–156. doi:10.2307/3601736. ISSN 0145-2258. JSTOR 3601736.
- Seligmann, Linda J. (1995). "Review of Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America". Ethnohistory. 42 (3): 520–522. doi:10.2307/483220. ISSN 0014-1801. JSTOR 483220.
- "Allen Isaacman. Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. (Social History of Africa.) Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, or David Philip, Cape Town, or James Currey, London. 1996. Pp. xii, 272. Cloth $60.00, paper $24.95". The American Historical Review. February 1997. doi:10.1086/ahr/102.1.150. ISSN 1937-5239.
- Cramer, Chris (January 1999). "Allen Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: peasants, work and rural struggle in colonial Mozambique, 1938–61. Social History of Africa series, Portsmouth NH: Heinemann; Cape Town: David Philip; London: James Currey, 1996, 272 pp., £35.00, ISBN 0 435 08976 5 hard covers, £15.95, ISBN 0 435 08978 1 paperback". Africa. 69 (1): 163–165. doi:10.2307/1161083. ISSN 1750-0184. JSTOR 1161083.
- Miller, Joseph C. (2005). "Review of Slavery and Beyond: The Making of Men and Chikunda Ethnic Identities in the Unstable World of South-Central Africa, 1750-1920". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 38 (2): 351–353. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 40034931.
- McKITTRICK, MEREDITH (2014). "Review of Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007. New African Histories Series". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 47 (1): 153–155. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 24393342.
- Penvenne, Jeanne Marie (May 2016). "ALLEN F. ISAACMAN and BARBARA S. ISAACMAN , Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007. Athens OH: University of Ohio Press (pb $32.95 – 978 0 82142 0 331). 2013, xvi + 291pp". Africa. 86 (2): 355–357. doi:10.1017/S0001972016000139. ISSN 0001-9720. S2CID 147826684.
- Wetzel, Johanna M. (2 January 2022). "Mozambique's Samora Machel: A Life Cut Short". South African Historical Journal. 74 (1): 189–193. doi:10.1080/02582473.2022.2040580. ISSN 0258-2473. S2CID 247486154.
- Fernandes, Carlos (6 September 2021). "A llen I saacman and B arbara I saacman . Mozambique's Samora Machel: A Life Cut Short ". The American Historical Review. 126 (2): 715–718. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhab213.