Lynn Schler’s Nation on Board: Becoming Nigerian at Sea investigates the history of Nigerian Seamen during the transition from colonialism to nationalism in Nigeria. Schler’s account turns to cultural, economic, and political factors that defined and reshaped the identity of Nigerian Seamen, and seeks to illuminate the entanglements of decolonization and national identity. The account of Nigerian Seamen is novel in its ability to depict people who juggle identities of cosmopolitanism, and nationalism, and how these roles were/are caught in racial tensions of the time.
Although Schler utilizes a number of sources ranging from personal accounts to archival ship logs, her concluding chapters weigh heavily on the rhetoric of Western scholars’ claims regarding Nigerian cultural and political dynamics. In the first 4 chapters Schler excels at weaving cultural narratives into her discussions of identity, but fails to produce when turning to blame much of the failure of the NNSL on Nigerian culture. Although it is quite possible that Shler’s assessment is accurate, if there is a time to afford agency to your research subject, it is probably when you are attempting to indict them.
While Nation on Board was extremely interesting, and relates widely to my group’s research topic (Global Reactions to Apartheid), it is written with excruciating redundancy. Many sentences and paragraphs from chapter to chapter are near carbon copies of others, with minor variation or slightly enhanced explanation. The entire book, it written succinctly, could easily have been a 30 page article. Maybe I’m not used to books written by historians (due to my background in anthropology), but it seemed every section began with a fluff paragraph explaining that “in order to understand x, we need to look at the context”. I feel that this is a given, and you shouldn’t need a paragraph to explain why context is important, in every single section. Context is always important.
Aside from my grievances with writing style, Nation on Board was enlightening for its ability to show the complex ways that Nigerian Seamen navigated the numerous cultural spheres in which they found themselves. The book also delivers a compelling account of the political and economic repercussions (and manipulations) delivered during decolonization, and how these factors helped shape the circumstances of modern Africa.
Digital History 