Getz, Trevor R.

PERSONAL:

Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1995; University of Cape Town, M.A., 1997; University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Home—El Cerrito, CA. Office—San Francisco State University, History Department, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic and historian. University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, assistant professor, 2002; San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, assistant professor, 2002-07, associate professor of history, 2007—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Presidential Award for Professional Development, San Francisco State University, 2004; Fulbright Scholar Award, William J. Fulbright Foundation, 2008; recipient of research grants.

WRITINGS:

Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Historical Review, International Journal of African Historical Studies, African Studies Review, Journal of the Royal African Society, English Historical Review, Journal of Maritime History, Africa, and H-Net Reviews.

SIDELIGHTS:

Trevor R. Getz is an academic and historian. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history and anthropology in 1995 from the University of California, Berkeley. Getz then continued on to graduate studies at the University of Cape Town, earning a master of arts degree in history in 1997. He completed a Ph.D. in history in 2000 from the University of London in the School of Oriental and African Studies. Getz has been an associate professor of history at San Francisco State University since 2007, and his research interests include comparative studies of nationalism and slavery, teaching methods for world and African history, and oral histories of Ghana and South Africa.

Getz published his first book, Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast, in 2004. The book, an adaptation of his doctoral thesis, "The Most Perfidious Institution: The Slow Death of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast," is a comparative history that looks at the dynamics between European suppression of the Atlantic slave trade and the European emancipation of slaves several years later in French Senegal and the British Gold Coast regions of West Africa.

Leland Conley Barrows, reviewing the book on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, described the book as "fascinating and informative," adding that "the reader of this book is left with the clear understanding that the course of emancipation in Senegal and Gold Coast was driven by a number of factors of which ‘the impact of European metropolitan initiatives [was] just the beginning of [the] story’ and certainly had very little to do in the case of the French experience in Senegal with any perceived notions of African inferiority (p. 180). For both France and Great Britain, ‘to please audiences at home, slavery had to be abolished. But to keep colonies safe and profitable, slave owners could not be alienated’ (p. 183)." Barrows remarked that "Getz has developed a fully sustainable thesis, even though his social science-influenced writing style lacks the polish" of other studies, "and his politically correct approach to the spelling of certain (but not all) Senegalese personal and place names may annoy certain readers." Barrows continued, saying that "it is also clear that Getz has a better mastery of colonial Gold Coast/Ghanaian history than he has of colonial Senegalese history as proven both by the more ample listing of British/Gold Coast archival materials in his bibliography than of similar materials concerning France and Senegal and, unfortunately, by the large number of errors appearing in his treatment of the French/Senegal component of his study." He also noted that Getz "omits the dates of publication of the published materials that he cites in his notes." Barrows concluded: "Still, this reviewer recommends [Slavery and Reform in West Africa] to interested readers."

Martin A. Klein, reviewing the book in the Journal of African History, commented that Getz weaves "his way deftly through both the literature and the sources on slavery policy," adding that "any differences I have with Getz are minor." Klein also observed that the author "argues convincingly that slave initiative produced change even though neither the administrators nor the slave-owners wanted it. Rather, the slaves were able to exploit changes in power relations to renegotiate the nature of their servitude and gradually to empty slavery of much of its economic content." Klein concluded by saying that, "all in all, this is an excellent book." Ray A. Kea, writing in the Historian, remarked that Getz "integrates his secondary sources into his primary-source-based narrative in an effective and informative way. He provides the reader with an insightful analysis that incorporates other viewpoints and interpretations, and, at the same time, he offers the reader a synthesis that gives an overview of the relevant historiography." Kea called the range of his sources "impressive" and said that the book is "well written and engaging in its narrative style." Walter Hawthorne, writing in Africa, concluded that "by focusing on the subjects about which his sources speak most loudly—European administrators and African elites—he tells us much about the weakness of the nineteenth-century colonial state and about its failure to establish hegemony. For that reason alone, this is a book that scholars of African slavery will appreciate for much time to come."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Africa, fall, 2005, Walter Hawthorne, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast, p. 619.

American Historical Review, June, 2005, Andrew F. Clark, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 913.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 2004, T. Falola, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 347.

Historian, summer, 2006, Ray A. Kea, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 328.

International History Review, December, 2005, Gregory Mann, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 849.

International Journal of African Historical Studies, summer, 2005, Raymond Dumett, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 533.

Journal of African History, July, 2005, Martin A Klein, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 351.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2004, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa, p. 157.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (April, 2005), Leland Conley Barrows, review of Slavery and Reform in West Africa; (April 1, 2008), author profile.

San Francisco State University Web site,http://www.sfsu.edu/ (April 1, 2008), author profile.