The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi

"The Comforts of Home" is a major work on Africa by any standard. By analyzing "prostitution" as domestic labor & tying it to urban history, White breaks new ground, avoiding the moralizing outlooks common to many studies of the subject. The book also displays the value of Africanists' interdisciplinary approach to history, especially in using evidence, not least because of her remarkable oral data collected under very demanding conditions. This book deserved, & won, the 1991 Herskovits Prize for best book from the African Studies Association. It is consistently readable and intellectually challenging.