I am a specialist in central African history. My work is primarily concerned with the study of continuities between the precolonial and the colonial political dispensations. I am the co-editor of the series “War and Militarism in African History” (Ohio UP), and a member of the executive editorial board of the journal Africa (Rome) and of the editorial committee of the British Academy’s Fontes Historiae Africanae.

---

My most significant recent publications are The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Technology and Politics (Ohio UP, 2016) – a monograph which makes a case for marrying the insights of Africanist historiography with those of consumption and technology studies; The Colonial Occupation of Katanga: The Personal Correspondence of Clément Brasseur, 1893-1897 (Oxford UP, 2018) – a lengthy critical edition which offers a new interpretation of the nature and workings of the Congo Free State; Una storia violenta. Potere e conflitti nel bacino del Congo (XVIII-XXI secolo) (Viella, 2021) – a long-term history of "warlordism" in the Congo basin; as well as the article “Warlordism in the Congo Basin between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth Centuries”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 56, 1 (2023)