For anyone interested in the complex relationship between the Cold War, decolonization and post-colonial security in Africa this book is a must-read. Wyss provides the first ever systematic, comparative analysis of the establishment of postcolonial security relationships in Cold War Africa. The book will be of interest to historians but also to scholars of Area, Development, and Security Studies, as well as International Relations.

Tony Chafer, Professor of French and African Studies, University of Portsmouth

Spotlighting the local concerns that impelled Côte d'Ivoire's durable alignment with France in contrast to Britain's rapid loss of strategic pre-eminence in Nigeria, Postcolonial Security is comparative history at its best. Marco Wyss searches for patterns and similarities in the regional preoccupations of two West African states, whose security strategies followed very different paths in the wake of decolonization.

Martin Thomas, Professor of Imperial History, University of Exeter

This book stands as a remarkable achievement. Using a wide range of archival material, Marco Wyss explores in wonderful detail the evolving nature of the security relationships between Britain and Nigeria, and between France and Côte d'Ivoire, in the early postcolonial era. The research underpinning the book is astonishingly comprehensive, and the resulting granularity which Wyss has been able to provide is deeply impressive. The book makes a seminal contribution to our comprehension of Africa's Cold War, which in many ways has been only superficially understood for too long. Wyss has drawn us a new set of maps by which to navigate the scholarly terrain and shows us what is possible through exhaustive research. Historians of modern Africa, and of modern international relations, owe him a debt of gratitude, and I anticipate that the book will remain the standard reference for some years to come.

Richard Reid, Professor of African History, University of Oxford