A book by Rhodes College international studies professor Dr. Shadrack Nasong'o has received the 2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award. The prestigious honor reflects the best scholarly titles reviewed during the previous calendar year and chosen by editors of Choice, which is a publishing unit of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.
The book is titled Kenya and the Politics of a Postcolony and was published in 2024 by Anthem Press. In the book, Nasong'o examines the governance and politics of Kenya since its independence from Britain in 1963 to the present.
Born and raised in Western Kenya, Nasong’o is a prominent critical voice on African politics. He has been widely recognized for his prolific research and scholarship on Africa, including being presented Rhodes’ Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research and/or Creative Activity, the University of Texas at Austin’s Ali Mazrui Award for Research and Scholarly Excellence, the CODESRIA Diaspora Visiting Fellowship, and the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (2020 and 2022).
Nasong’o has been granted a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award in political science from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Currently, he is using the award to teach and conduct research during the 2025-2026 academic year at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation/Institute for Global African Affairs, which is located at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.