Book review: Roadblock politics: the origins of violence in central Africa by Peer Schouten

Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa offers a new way to think about state power and violence, in and through infrastructure. Peer Schouten writes a powerful and empirically detailed account of the messy politics of control that has characterised the region’s logistical and trade flows over time. Movement necessitates encounters, with blockade points run by an assortment of state officials, military and rebel factions, bandits and villagers that levy transit taxes.