Living with Nkrumahism. Jeffrey S. Ahlman

      Acknowledgments

      I first traveled to Ghana in December 2004 as part of a study abroad course run by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Center for African Studies. As one of the directors of the course, Jean Allman helped introduce me to Ghana and the study of its history. Ever since, she has continued to support me and my research with her wise counsel and critical eye. At the University of Illinois, I also benefited from the insights and guidance of James Brennan, the late Donald Crummey, Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, and Charles Stewart. Kwame Essien, Bruce Hall, Erica Hill, Abdulai Iddrisu, Ryan Jones, Alice Jones-Nelson, Lessie Tate, Habtamu Mengistie Tegegne, and Brian Yates further provided a rich intellectual community and support system during my time there. The seeds of this project can also be found in my time at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where Walter Rucker introduced me to the study of Nkrumah and pan-Africanism, and James Le Sueur encouraged me to think more critically about the challenges of historicizing decolonization.

      In Ghana, my utmost gratitude goes to those who graciously took the time to sit down with me (formally and informally) to talk about their experiences living with Nkrumahism. Furthermore, Abdulai Iddrisu and Emily Asiedu each provided me with homes when needed during my travels. In 2009, Kofi Baku kindly provided a forum for me to present my research in the University of Ghana’s Department of History. In Ghana, I also enjoyed the wisdom and guidance of the staffs of the George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs and of the various branches of the Public Records and Archives Administration Department I visited. In particular, Edward Addo-Yobo and James Naabah at the Padmore Library truly made this project possible by introducing me to the Bureau of African Affairs files held by this wonderful and unique repository. In the United States, their counterparts at the Howard University Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the Smith College Archives, the Mount Holyoke College Archives, the Yale University Archives and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Princeton University Archives, and the New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture were similarly inviting and helpful during my and my research assistants’ visits. I also want to thank Kwesi Asiedu and Ben Cudjoe, who each aided me with the interview and transcription process.

      Among Africanists, Jennifer Hart and Bianca Murillo have long helped me think through the challenges of this project and, over the years, each has generously read and commented on significant portions of the work, answered questions, and offered guidance and friendship. Emily Callaci and Priya Lal were also kind enough to offer their time and energy in commenting on portions of the book. Craig and Sarah Waite added to my sense of community while researching the book. Between 2009 and 2012, I was fortunate enough to receive fellowships from the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies and the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Africana Studies, which further enriched my network of colleagues interested in African and pan-African studies. Among those who I had the privilege of working with and learning from at these institutions were Sara Berry, Tshepo Chery, Julia Cummisky, Adam Ewing, Ben Fagan, Jonathan Fenderson, Roquinaldo Ferriera, Bukky Gbadegesin, Anatoli Ignatov, Isaac Kamola, Pier Larson, Joe Miller, Anoop Mirpuri, Cody Perkins, Noel Stringham, Alice Wiemers, and Thabiti Willis. Joe Miller in particular expanded the ways in which I thought about and understood the African past. Sara Berry was similarly generous during my year at Johns Hopkins and afterwards. Likewise, in Baltimore, Elizabeth Schmidt—whose studies on Guinea have long inspired my own thinking about African nationalism, decolonization, and Cold War politics—served as a mentor, helping me navigate the project’s conceptualization as a book. More broadly, David Amponsah, Lacy Ferrell, Harcourt Fuller, Frank Gerits, Leslie James, Keri Lambert, Liz McMahon, Stephan Miescher, Nate Plageman, Jeremy Pool, Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch, Paul Schauert, Ben Talton, and Meredith Terretta all provided support, guidance, and friendship as I pursued this project.

      Since 2012, my institutional home has been Smith College. It is hard to imagine a more welcoming and intellectually stimulating community of scholars and students than those I have had the pleasure of working with in the college’s

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