The Nature of the Path: Reading a West African Road. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. ix + 217 pp. Contents. Notes on Orthography, Diacritics, and Language. Photos. Maps. Acknowledgements. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.00. Paper. ISBN: 978-1-5179-0283-4

• Published in: African studies review 2020, Vol.63 (3), p.E35-E37
• Main Author: Nathan Riley Carpenter
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Appropriation; Authority; Autonomy; Bibliographic literature; Centralization; Decentralization; Decision making; Environmental history; Exploitation; Forests; French language; Independence; Narratives; Nature; Orthographic symbols; Orthography; Political ecology; Political history; Political power; Politics; Relocation; Sovereignty
• ISSN: 0002-0206; 1555-2462
• DOI: 10.1017/asr.2020.61

Part of what Filippello calls a “fluid sense of independence” (11) comes from Ọhọri’s own fluctuating political structure, which ranged from centralized authority where power was vested in a “king” to a more decentralized authority where decision making was the purview of various individuals. While not framed as such, these Ọhọri narratives challenge prevailing depictions of declensionist environmental narratives, which tend to emphasize the ways in which colonial regimes in Africa used claims of environmental decline to justify land appropriation, forced resettlement, and exploitation. The French destruction of Ọhọri forests certainly “challenged Ọhọri conceptualizations of the natural world’s role in substantiating their autonomy” (74), but it did not destroy the community or a sense of Ọhọri independence or identity.