“Jackson’s book is profound, thought-provoking and moving, and should be read by anyone with an interest in Sierra Leone.” — Diane Frost, Global Dialogue
“Jackson’s existential-phenomenological anthropology is of great inspiration to me, a source that never goes dry. And In Sierra Leone is perhaps ethnography at its best; it is specific but still encourages comparison and contemplation on the human condition…” — Sverker Finnström, American Ethnologist
"In Sierra Leone succeeds in throwing light on the rebellion. . . . Drawing on his experience before the war and supplementing it with post-war interviews, Jackson helps us understand those who took to violence." — David Keen, Times Literary Supplement
"[A] haunting account, a discomforting and valuable meditation." — Raymond Brinkman, Journal of Anthropological Research
"[A] melancholic, reflective and informed work that will fascinate readers wishing to learn more about West African politics and people." — Publishers Weekly,
"[A] powerful reaffirmation of Sierra Leonean social resilience. . . . Jackson's lyrical passages also speak to the complex resilience of the human spirit. . . . [H]e has written a book that transforms a complex and violent world into an inspiringly evocative painting . . . In Sierra Leone." — Paul Stoller, Anthropological Quarterly,
"[A] sociopolitical memoir that's educational and memorable." — David Pitt, Booklist
"[C]ompelling. . . . [O]ffering arresting details of the life and times of a classic African "big man" and illuminating the nature of postcolonial politics in Sierra Leone." — Nicolas van de Walle, Foreign Affairs
"[T]his is a complex and unsettling book which is also absorbing and deceptively easy to read. . . . I found it rewarding and I believe it will be attractive to intelligent readers who are not imprisoned within conventional forms of ethnography or biography." — J. Lowell Lewis, The Australian Journal of Anthropology
"The book brilliantly evokes the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of West Africa along with the emotions and ambivalences that come with long-term relationships with people there. . . . This is a work of overwhelming honesty that can be read and appreciated on many levels." — Mary H. Moran, International Journal of African Historical Studies,
"This is a fascinating and many-layered book. It will be especially evocative for those familiar with Sierra Leone, both before and after the civil war. But few books I know of set out so clearly and accessibly the practice of anthropology and all the faculties and sensibilities one needs to do it well. For that reason alone it deserves to become a classic." — Richard Fanthorpe, African Affairs
“A fascinating document that reflects importantly on widescale violence and war, the nature of narrative, the sensibilities of witnessing, the play of memory, and the predicament of anthropology in places and among peoples that the discipline has studied in calmer times.” — George Marcus, author of Ethnography through Thick and Thin
“Throughout In Sierra Leone interpersonal, domestic relations of inequality—the everyday resentments, harshness, and ironies that characterize hierarchical relations between Big Men and their entourage, older brothers and their juniors—unfold against the backdrop of History with a capital H. Only someone with Michael Jackson’s unique blend of anthropological and poetic sensibility and long-term engagement with Sierra Leone could write this book.” — Mariane Ferme, author of The Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone