Francis OnditiDouglas Yates2024-08-232024-08-232023-04-23Bohler-Muller, N. (2023). Illusions of Location Theory: Consequences for Blue Economy in Africa: edited by Francis Onditi and Douglas Yates, Delaware, Vernon Press, 2021, 456 pp. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines, 57(3), 749–751. https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2023.2197688https://repository.ru.ac.ke/handle/123456789/362This book was conceptualised in response to pressing concerns arising in Africa related to land and maritime boundary disputes, the fragility of landlocked countries and how these issues of “location” – in its broadest sense – impact on the development of the blue economy in Africa. This also relates to concerns about the “limits to growth” expressed nearly fifty years ago by the Club of Rome (Meadows et al. Citation1972, 23) as follows: If the present growth trend in the world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable declining in both population and industrial capacity. The blue economy (also known as blue growth) has emerged as one of the alternative models of development to ensure inclusive growth and prosperity in the world (see Attri and Bohler-Muller Citation2018). Editors Onditi and Yates essentially focus on the intersections between location theory and the blue economy by gathering the viewpoints of scholars and practitioners across numerous disciplines, including experts in international relations and international law, political science, geography, environmental studies, economics, African affairs, and peace and development studies, aimed at understanding these complex and intertwined concepts in a world facing food, water and energy insecurity and increasing regional and sub-regional conflicts. Illusions of Location Theory tackles these issues in three parts: Section I: Coastal–Hinterland Epistemologies; Section II: Coastal–Hinterland Continuum; and Section III: Smart Blue Economies. The dominant theme in Section I, which shapes the book, is around re-thinking location theory to include aspects of inter-state relations, and the impact of divisions, inequality, spatiality and geopolitics on the blue economy.enBlue EconomyBook