Slow Poison

Mahmood Mamdani is an author of much originality, and his latest book, Slow Poison, is an obvious testimony to his well-rounded brilliance. – Nuruddin Farah, author of From a Crooked RibMahmood Mamdani is one of the most acute and resourceful observers of our world, but Slow Poison is exceptionally lavish in its offer of bracing insight and eye-opening exposition. Rarely has any one book captured the profound ambiguity of decolonization: the scrambled pursuit of national freedom, the tortuous negotiations and compromises behind declarations of sovereignty, and the sheer slipperiness of postcolonial power. – Pankaj Mishra, author of The World After GazaFor half a century, Mahmood Mamdani has been one of the world’s most influential and incisive analysts of African and Global South politics. Slow Poison reveals why. Combining history, political critique, and memoir, the book offers a riveting account of the consequences of state-directed violence, ‘tribalization,’ and neoliberal privatization, as well as the various Western entanglements, upending a litany of myths surrounding Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and modern Uganda. Mamdani makes for a compelling witness. Brilliant! – Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary TimesOne isn’t always the master of one’s destiny, but for Mahmood Mamdani, remaining a spectator is not a valid option. Written like a novel, this book retraces the steps in the construction of the Ugandan nation, with the relevant critical stakes but above all reckoning with a long administered ‘slow poison.’ – In Koli Jean Bofane, author of Congo Inc.

Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. He was Director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala from 2010 to 2022. His books include Neither Settler nor Native, Citizen and Subject, When Victims Become Killers, and Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.