THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Biography:
Samuel Fury Childs Daly joined the University of Chicago in January 2024 as an Associate Professor of History and a historian specializing in twentieth-century Africa. His research integrates legal, military, and social history to examine the continent's post-independence trajectory. His recent book, A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2020), explores the relationship between the crisis conditions of the Nigerian Civil War and the emergence of crime as a defining feature of Nigeria’s postwar landscape.
His monograph enhancement project, “Soldier’s Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire”, has been accepted for publication by Duke University Press.
Monograph Enhancement Project:
Daly's “Soldier’s Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire” project is a transnational history of military rule in the former British Empire in Africa. Using legal records and the fragile, scattered archives of several military dictatorships, it describes the peculiar visions that soldiers had for their countries in the years after independence – a time marked by dozens of coups, putsches, and military “revolutions.” Long submerged by more hopeful ideological currents, militarism is now rising back to the surface of African politics. “Soldier’s Paradise” describes where it came from, and why it has lasted so long.