When we ruled The rise and fall of twelve African queens and warriors

Colonial-era Western histories and postcolonial African accounts either ignored the role of elite women in African societies or distorted them for propaganda purposes. In When We Ruled, British historian Akpan recounts the histories of a dozen African queens and warriors from around the continent--including Nana Yaa Asantewaa, who led the Asante people against British colonizers and combined both roles. Akpan merges storytelling with anecdotes about her personal research visits to nearly all the homelands of the women she writes about. By interspersing her journey to archives and museums with re-created narratives, she illustrates how tentative and subjective our understandings of these often misunderstood or forgotten women leaders are. One example is Njinga a Mbande, a nonbinary ruler whose legacy was distorted and denied by the Portuguese colonizers they resisted for years. Akpan complicates the sterile, often nationalist myths that surround some of these near-mythic leaders while also acknowledging the ways in which colonial biases and Western historiographic traditions distorted their stories and silenced their voices. Those interested in the issues swirling around African history as well as feminist and LGBTQ+ perspectives will welcome her approach, which challenges old certainties and complicates pat narratives.