Population Politics in the Tropics: Demography, Health and Transimperialism in Colonial Angola

Population Politics in the Tropics explores colonial population  policies in Angola between 1890 and 1945 from a transimperial  perspective. Using a wide array of previously unused sources and  multilingual archival research from Angola, Portugal and beyond, Samuël  Coghe sheds new light on the history of colonial Angola, showing how  population policies were conceived, implemented and contested. He  analyses why and how doctors, administrators, missionaries and other  colonial actors tried to grasp and quantify demographic change and  'improve' the health conditions, reproductive regimes and migration  patterns of Angola's 'native' population. Coghe argues that these  interventions were inextricably linked to pervasive fears of  depopulation and underpopulation, but that their implementation was  often hampered by weak state structures, internal conflicts and multiple  forms of African agency. Coghe's fresh analysis of demography, health  and migration in colonial Angola challenges common ideas of Portuguese  colonial exceptionalism.