…a magnificent assembly of essays in which each effectively tackles the symbolic, historical, political, social, and economic forces that have continued to give life meaning in sub-Saharan Africa over the past century. As such this book should quickly establish itself as a landmark volume that finds a place of the shelves of all who are interested in processes of postcolonial change and what they signify all over the globe…The eight essays, written by current and former students and colleagues of the editors, [explore] ‘the extent to which modernity – itself always an imaginary construction of the present in terms of the mythic past – has its own magicalities, its own enchantments.’ As such, the essays all evince the strong influence of the Comaroffs who…have long charted a path toward analyzing the many imaginative representations of colonialism and its disastrous aftermath.