Martha G. Anderson and Lisa Aronson's edited volume on the work of J.A. Green is a welcome contribution to the rapidly burgeoning history of African photography. Published in the wake of thematic anthologies that more broadly address the continent's photographic histories and its corresponding archives, this volume begins to redress the relative dearth of monographs dedicated to examining the particular lives and oeuvres of Africa's early photographers.1 Beyond helping to fill a lacuna in the history of photography for focused studies on the continent's practitioners, this richly illustrated publication troubles simplistic understandings of the “colonial gaze,” affords new opportunities for exploring the malleability of photographic meaning, and presents a cogent framework for engaging Africa's fragmented photographic archives.
Over the course of four thematic sections, this volume's five contributors situate Green, his images, and their legacies within the social and political contexts in which they first emerged and into which...