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Lords of the Fly: Sleeping Sickness Control in British East Africa, 1900-1960. By Kirk Arden Hoppe. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Pp. xii, 203; 20 illustrations. $67.00.
Kirk Hoppe has taken an admirable approach in his study of British colonial efforts to control sleeping sickness in their East African colonies. He has attempted a multi-country study where all too often scholars either focus on a single colony or on metropolitan policy to the exclusion of the impact of policies on the ground. Hoppe's topic lends itself to this type of analysis. Sleeping sickness control meant intervention in the landscape in an attempt to change the conditions that allowed for the transmission of trypanosomiasis-caused illnesses in humans and domestic livestock. Thus colonial states sought to change environmental conditions in a context where colonial boundaries often limited the effectiveness of such policies. In addition, the policies of control drew on scientific discourses that circulated between colonies and scientific institutions throughout the empire. The key policymakers often drew on experiences from colleagues in other colonies and on theoretical...