Brian G. Shellum. African American Officers in Liberia

Brian G. Shellum has devoted the better part of two decades to investigating the experiences of African American military officers and their understudied role in the development of U.S. national identity and overseas expansion. His earlier books focused on Charles Young, an extraordinary West Point graduate and army colonel who would see service across the Pacific and Atlantic and eventually perish while on assignment in Africa. African American Officers in Liberia: A Pestiferous Rotation, 1910–1942 builds upon this previous work, opening outward to examine Young’s life and others within the context of American governmental and corporate engagement with West Africa. Well researched and lucidly written, this book advances the literature on African American history and the projection of U.S. power across the early twentieth-century globe. It also fills in some of the lost details of Liberian history and how its ruling elite managed to consolidate itself against harrowing opposition at home and abroad.

Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Elite · Globe · Opposition (politics) · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Psychology