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Books > Humanities > History > African history

Beyond Africa's Democratic Experiments (Hardcover): Paulinus C. Iwuji Beyond Africa's Democratic Experiments (Hardcover)
Paulinus C. Iwuji
R865 Discovery Miles 8 650 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Governing the Nile River Basin - The Search for a New Legal Regime (Paperback): Mwangi Kimenyi, John Mbaku Governing the Nile River Basin - The Search for a New Legal Regime (Paperback)
Mwangi Kimenyi, John Mbaku
R871 Discovery Miles 8 710 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The effective and efficient management of water is a major problem, not just for economic growth and development in the Nile River basin, but also for the peaceful coexistence of the millions of people who live in the region. Of critical importance to the people of this part of Africa is the reasonable, equitable and sustainable management of the waters of the Nile River and its tributaries. Written by scholars trained in economics and law, and with significant experience in African political economy, this book explores new ways to deal with conflict over the allocation of the waters of the Nile River and its tributaries. The monograph provides policymakers in the Nile River riparian states and other stakeholders with practical and effective policy options for dealing with what has become a very contentious problem - the effective management of the waters of the Nile River. The analysis is quite rigorous but also extremely accessible.

Encyclopedia of Cape Town (Hardcover): Justin Corfield Encyclopedia of Cape Town (Hardcover)
Justin Corfield
R1,500 Discovery Miles 15 000 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
The Esan People of Nigeria, West Africa (Hardcover): Eve Ikuenobe Otaigbe The Esan People of Nigeria, West Africa (Hardcover)
Eve Ikuenobe Otaigbe
R754 Discovery Miles 7 540 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Medicine and Morality in Egypt - Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Hardcover): Sherry Sayed... Medicine and Morality in Egypt - Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Hardcover)
Sherry Sayed Gadelrab
R4,065 Discovery Miles 40 650 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In Middle Eastern and Islamic societies, the politics of sexual knowledge is a delicate and often controversial subject. Sherry Sayed Gadelrab focuses on nineteenth and early-twentieth century Egypt, claiming that during this period there was a perceptible shift in the medical discourse surrounding conceptualisations of sex differences and the construction of sexuality. Medical authorities began to promote theories that suggested men's innate 'active' sexuality as opposed to women's more 'passive' characteristics, interpreting the differences in female and male bodies to correspond to this hierarchy. Through examining the interconnection of medical, legal, religious and moral discourses on sexual behaviour, Gadelrab highlights the association between sex, sexuality and the creation and recreation of the concept of gender at this crucial moment in the development of Egyptian society. By analysing the debates at the time surrounding science, medicine, morality, modernity and sexuality, she paints a nuanced picture of the Egyptian understanding and manipulation of the concepts of sex and gender.

Minorities and the State in Africa (Hardcover, New): Michael U. Mbanaso, Chima J Korieh Minorities and the State in Africa (Hardcover, New)
Michael U. Mbanaso, Chima J Korieh
R2,842 Discovery Miles 28 420 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book explores the various facets of the relationship between minorities and the state across Africa. The motivation for this collection lies in the growing need to understand the often tenuous relationship between minorities and the state. Through this collection, the editors and contributors present thoughtful ways for understanding forms of hegemony imposed by dominant groups in relational, national, and regional experiences. The book offers alternative conceptual and theoretical approaches and alternative research strategies for dealing with minority/majority issues, as well as resource control in historical and contemporary perspectives. The collection focuses on minority issues in contemporary Africa from a historical perspective, but also links these issues to global movements (such as international human rights) in an innovative manner. This book employs a cross-regional approach to explore specific issues in minority-state relations and human rights. This unprecedented approach holds the potential of serving as a foundation study for future research that seek to employ a comparative approach to specific issues in minority and human rights studies.

Medicinal Rule - A Historical Anthropology of Kingship in East and Central Africa (Hardcover): Koen Stroeken Medicinal Rule - A Historical Anthropology of Kingship in East and Central Africa (Hardcover)
Koen Stroeken
R2,908 Discovery Miles 29 080 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

As soon as Europeans set foot on African soil, they looked for the equivalents of their kings - and found them. The resulting misunderstandings have lasted until this day. Based on ethnography-driven regional comparison and a critical re-examination of classic monographs on some forty cultural groups, this volume makes the arresting claim that across equatorial Africa the model of rule has been medicine - and not the colonizer's despotic administrator, the missionary's divine king, or Vansina's big man. In a wide area populated by speakers of Bantu and other languages of the Niger-Congo cluster, both cult and dynastic clan draw on the fertility shrine, rainmaking charm and drum they inherit.

Making and Unmaking Public Health in Africa - Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives (Hardcover, New): Ruth J. Prince,... Making and Unmaking Public Health in Africa - Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives (Hardcover, New)
Ruth J. Prince, Rebecca Marsland
R2,364 Discovery Miles 23 640 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Africa has emerged as a prime arena of global health interventions that focus on particular diseases and health emergencies. These are framed increasingly in terms of international concerns about security, human rights, and humanitarian crisis. This presents a stark contrast to the 1960s and '70s, when many newly independent African governments pursued the vision of public health "for all," of comprehensive health care services directed by the state with support from foreign donors. These initiatives often failed, undermined by international politics, structural adjustment, and neoliberal policies, and by African states themselves. Yet their traces remain in contemporary expectations of and yearnings for a more robust public health.
This volume explores how medical professionals and patients, government officials, and ordinary citizens approach questions of public health as they navigate contemporary landscapes of NGOs and transnational projects, faltering state services, and expanding privatization. Its contributors analyze the relations between the public and the private providers of public health, from the state to new global biopolitical formations of political institutions, markets, human populations, and health. Tensions and ambiguities animate these complex relationships, suggesting that the question of what public health actually is in Africa cannot be taken for granted. Offering historical and ethnographic analyses, the volume develops an anthropology of public health in Africa.

Contributors: P. Wenzel Geissler; Murray Last; Rebecca Marsland; Lotte Meinert; Benson A. Mulemi; Ruth J. Prince; and Noemi Tousignant.

Routledge Library Editions: Immigration and Migration (Hardcover): Various Routledge Library Editions: Immigration and Migration (Hardcover)
Various
R52,580 Discovery Miles 525 800 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Routledge Library Editions: Immigration and Migration, a collection of 20 previously out-of-print titles, features some key research on a multitude of subject areas. Integration, assimilation, multi-culturalism, historical and modern migration, questions on culture, language, labour and law - all are covered here, forming a snapshot of the immigrant experience across the world.

Gender and Mobility in Africa - Borders, Bodies and Boundaries (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018): Kalpana Hiralal, Zaheera Jinnah Gender and Mobility in Africa - Borders, Bodies and Boundaries (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018)
Kalpana Hiralal, Zaheera Jinnah
R4,354 Discovery Miles 43 540 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume examines gender and mobility in Africa though the central themes of borders, bodies and identity. It explores perceptions and engagements around 'borders'; the ways in which 'bodies' and women's bodies in particular, shape and are affected by mobility, and the making and reproduction of actual and perceived 'boundaries'; in relation to gender norms and gendered identify. Over fourteen original chapters it makes revealing contributions to the field of migration and gender studies. Combining historical and contemporary perspectives on mobility in Africa, this project contextualises migration within a broad historical framework, creating a conceptual and narrative framework that resists post-colonial boundaries of thought on the subject matter. This multidisciplinary work uses divergent methodologies including ethnography, archival data collection, life histories and narratives and multi-country survey level data and engages with a range of conceptual frameworks to examine the complex forms and outcomes of mobility on the continent today. Contributions include a range of case studies from across the continent, which relate either conceptually or methodologically to the central question of gender identity and relations within migratory frameworks in Africa. This book will appeal to researchers and scholars of politics, history, anthropology, sociology and international relations.

Great Presidents of Nigerian 4th Republic - Democratic Nigeria from 1999 (Hardcover): Jubril Olabode Aka Great Presidents of Nigerian 4th Republic - Democratic Nigeria from 1999 (Hardcover)
Jubril Olabode Aka
R1,062 Discovery Miles 10 620 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Great Presidents of Nigerian 4th Republic Nigeria has arrived; Nigeria is born again with the most credible April 2011 general and presidential elections in 50 years according to International Community. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, VP Namadi Sambo and INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega deserve national and international honours. President Jonathan won landslide with 23 million votes across all party lines. The 'Promised Land' journey begins in earnest. Nigeria is marching forward steadfastly despite bumps and teething gestation problems to encounter. With 160 Million inhabitants, Nigeria is world's largest concentration of Blacks. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan's presidency beginning May 29, 2011 represents the fulfillment of hope, change, salvation, good luck and blessings after decades of military dictatorships between 1966 and 1999. Structured like USA Presidency, bi-cameral Legislature and Independent Judiciary, Nigeria became beloved to International Community sooner than anticipated. With membership in UN, OPEC, Commonwealth of Nations, AU, ECOWAS, NEPAD, Nigeria is seventh world's largest petroleum supplier and fifth supplier to USA. Nigeria is becoming economic super-power - 'Vision 2020' with abundance of oil, gas, bitumen, gold, etc. Nigeria is beautified by Atlantic Ocean, Rivers Niger and Benue, Lake Chad, Tinapa Holiday Resort (world-class), Olumo Rock, Igbesa Free Trade Zone. Nigeria, blessed and protected from natural disasters never witnessed devastating Tsunami, Katrina, volcano, thunderstorm, iceberg, earthquake and mudslide that wipe-out settlements and kill thousands seasonally. International Social Scientists' 4-year survey rated Nigeria as the world's happiest country (2006) while USA, Britain, Japan and Russia were outside the first 10. Also, International Financial Agencies confirmed Nigeria's 35% return on investment as world's highest. Nigeria's incredible hospitality encourages some Americans, Europeans and Asians to become naturalized citizens of Nigeria.Oil-rich country Nigeria, often described as African giant, peace and power broker Nigeria, granted amnesties to secessionists (1970), Niger Delta militants (2009) and settled Bakassi Peninsula dispute with Cameroon (2006) diplomatically. War-mongering super-powers and allies, intimidating and occupying weaker nations illegally, should emulate Nigerian leadership examples of Presidents Obasanjo, Yar'Adua and Jonathan's peaceful conflict resolution best practices for world peace. Wake Up Nigerians Make Nigeria Great and Prosperous Failure Is Not An Option Nigerians Are Tired of Excuses for Avoidable Leadership Indiscretion and Slumber for 50 Years of Independence Always Put Nigeria First Change 'Business as Usual' GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Rethinking and Unthinking Development - Perspectives on Inequality and Poverty in South Africa and Zimbabwe (Hardcover): Busani... Rethinking and Unthinking Development - Perspectives on Inequality and Poverty in South Africa and Zimbabwe (Hardcover)
Busani Mpofu, Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni
R2,907 Discovery Miles 29 070 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Development has remained elusive in Africa. Through theoretical contributions and case studies focusing on Southern Africa's former white settler states, South Africa and Zimbabwe, this volume responds to the current need to rethink (and unthink) development in the region. The authors explore how Africa can adapt Western development models suited to its political, economic, social and cultural circumstances, while rejecting development practices and discourses based on exploitative capitalist and colonial tendencies. Beyond the legacies of colonialism, the volume also explores other factors impacting development, including regional politics, corruption, poor policies on empowerment and indigenization, and socio-economic and cultural barriers.

The Congo-Zaire Experience, 1960-98 (Hardcover): E. O'Ballance The Congo-Zaire Experience, 1960-98 (Hardcover)
E. O'Ballance
R1,520 Discovery Miles 15 200 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This is the account of a huge Central African country, almost completely unprepared for liberation from colonial rule in 1960, plunged into the anarchy of factional struggles for central power, against a background of regional separatism. A UN force stepped in to prevent the mineral rich province of Katanga from breaking away and stayed for nearly four years, after which quarrelling warlords fought for central power, or for or against separatism. In 1965, Mobutu came to power, ruling as a dictator his Single Party State, until he was finally toppled in 1997 by a Tutsi backed invasion force led by Kabila.

Human Trafficking and Security in Southern Africa - The South African and Mozambican Experience (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018):... Human Trafficking and Security in Southern Africa - The South African and Mozambican Experience (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018)
Richard Obinna Iroanya
R2,996 Discovery Miles 29 960 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book investigates the links between human trafficking and national security in Southern Africa. Human trafficking violates borders, supports organised crime and corrupts border officials, and yet policymakers rarely view the persistence of human trafficking as a security issue. Adopting an expanded conceptualisation of security to encompass the individual as well as the state, Richard Obinna Iroanya lays the groundwork for understanding human trafficking as a security threat. He outlines the conditions and patterns of human trafficking globally before moving into detailed case studies of South Africa and Mozambique. Together, these case studies bring into focus the lives of the 'hidden population' in the region, with analysis and policy recommendations for combating a global phenomenon.

Democratization in Late Twentieth-Century Africa - Coping with Uncertainty (Hardcover, New): Jean-Germa Gros Democratization in Late Twentieth-Century Africa - Coping with Uncertainty (Hardcover, New)
Jean-Germa Gros
R2,214 Discovery Miles 22 140 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Few would disagree that since 1990 Sub-Saharan Africa has undergone a process of political transformation. Where one-party systems once stood, multi-parties are now dominant; where heads of state once ruled autocratically, open elections have emerged. In this study, both African and non-African scholars take a critical look at the evolution and contradictions of democratization in seven African nations: Malawi, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, and Gabon, each at a different stage in the democratization process. Some of these countries historically have not received much attention in North America. For example, little is known about Malawi, and Gabon has escaped notice outside the Francophone world. While other works have focused primarily upon the role that institutions have played in the democratization process, this study looks at individual leaders. Some of the authors were themselves participants in the reform movements in their home countries, and they examine the role that the military and the church played in the process. This volume also includes a discussion of why democratization has stagnated or been reversed in some nations.

Some Governance and Peaceful Coexistence Issues for Sustainable Advancement - A Nigerian Perspective (Hardcover): A.W. Lawrence Some Governance and Peaceful Coexistence Issues for Sustainable Advancement - A Nigerian Perspective (Hardcover)
A.W. Lawrence
R721 Discovery Miles 7 210 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Future Of Mining In South Africa - Sunset Or Sunrise? (Paperback): The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection The Future Of Mining In South Africa - Sunset Or Sunrise? (Paperback)
The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection
R320 R295 Discovery Miles 2 950 Save R25 (8%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

The future of mining in South Africa is hotly contested. Wide-ranging views from multiple quarters rarely seem to intersect, placing emphasis on different questions without engaging in holistic debate.

This book aims to catalyse change by gathering together fragmented views into unifying conversations. It highlights the importance of debating the future of mining in South Africa and for reaching consensus in other countries across the mineral-dependent globe.

It covers issues such as the potential of platinum to spur industrialisation, land and dispossession on the platinum belt, the roles of the state and capital in mineral development, mining in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the experiences of women in and affected by mining since the late 19th century and mine worker organising: history and lessons and how post-mine rehabilitation can be tackled.

It was inspired not only by an appreciation of South Africa’s extensive mineral endowments, but also by a realisation that, while the South African mining industry performs relatively well on many technical indicators, its management of broader social issues leaves much to be desired. It needs to be deliberated whether the mining industry can play as critical a role going forward as it did in the evolution of the country’s economy.

The Plague of Good Intentions - We Broke Africa Here's How to Fix It (Hardcover): Thomas Epley The Plague of Good Intentions - We Broke Africa Here's How to Fix It (Hardcover)
Thomas Epley
R882 Discovery Miles 8 820 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"Tom Epley has done a brilliant job . . . This seminal piece will become part of our curriculum at the African Leadership Academy . . . It will stimulate the future leaders of Africa to look at development issues in a refreshing new manner." Fred Swaniker, Founder and CEO, African Leadership Academy.
"Author Tom Epley is a myth-busting thinker and planner with a lifetime career of getting results from dysfunctional organizations as a highly successful turnaround CEO. Tom Epley has done more hands-on turnarounds than just about anyone." David Bonderman, General Partner TPG].
THE TRUTH WE ALL KNOW Despite the billions of dollars in funds for aid and development that have been poured into Africa, it remains a crucible of failed attempts at improving the dismal economy, life expectancy, food supply, and spread of AIDS and other diseases: in fact continuing decline persists.
THE LIE WE ALL BELIEVE Pouring more money into Africa and sending more well-intentioned world aid and NGO advisors, bearing new programs, technology, or other schemes, will help.
THE TRUTH WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND The "fixes" promulgated by the outside world have not only been wasteful, but have significantly contributed to the five-decades-long decline of Africa. Radically different approaches are critically necessary.
Hundreds of economists, journalists, philanthropists, academicians and bureaucrats continuously present their points of view, but Epley is the first to apply an entire career of actually getting results from large complex organizations to Africa s problems. In The Plague of Good Intentions he offers commonsense, workable, and proven albeit controversial prescriptive remedies Epley s iconoclasm stands out . . . medicine of clear but tough thinking . . . will] help address the pathologies that ail this tragic continent Geoffrey Garrett, President of the Pacific Council on International Policy] to create substantive and lasting change for the people of Africa .
"Epley draws on the rich experience he's had over the past three decades in successfully 'turning around' more than a dozen failing companies to derive lessons for reversing the deteriorating conditions of failing countries . . . Severe changes from what has been standard practice in the conduct of foreign aid programs . . . An] insightful, and illuminating book." Charles Wolf Jr., PhD, Founder of the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Policy Analysis.
Epley warns: Do not give another penny to African causes until you read The Plague of Good Intentions unless you want to contribute to the further devastation of Africa

David Livingstone - Mission and Empire (Hardcover, Illustrated Ed): Andrew Cross David Livingstone - Mission and Empire (Hardcover, Illustrated Ed)
Andrew Cross
R2,135 R1,956 Discovery Miles 19 560 Save R179 (8%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

David Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the supreme representatives of the British Empire. Yet his career suffered many set-backs during his own life-time, and since his death his reputation has swung between extremes of adulation and dismissal. Were his epic journeys through Africa purely to save souls and counter the slave trade? Or were they the first steps towards bringing the peoples of Central Africa under the control of Europeans who would destroy their values and exploit them economically? Beyond these questions, there lies the puzzle of Livingstone's own character and its contradictions.
Livingstone's career was certainly an extraordinary one. Born in poverty in Blantyre, Scotland, he educated himself by heroic endeavor, later proving him-self to be a remarkable linguist and scientist. His missionary journeys brought him into contact with a wide range of African peoples, for whom he showed remarkable sympathy. "David Livingstone: Mission and Empire is a scholarly and readable account of Livingstone's life and of his achievements.

Conceiving Mozambique (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018): John A Marcum Conceiving Mozambique (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2018)
John A Marcum; Edited by Edmund Burke III, Michael W. Clough
R4,005 Discovery Miles 40 050 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This long-awaited book is a vivid history of Frelimo, the liberation movement that gained power in Mozambique following the sudden collapse of Portuguese rule in 1974. The leading scholar of the liberation struggle in Portuguese Africa, John Marcum completed this work shortly before his death, after a lifetime of research and close contact with many of the major Mozambican nationalists of the time. Assembled from his rich archive of unpublished letters, diaries, and transcribed conversations with figures such as Eduardo Mondlane, Adelino Gwambe, and Marcelino dos Santos, this book captures the key issues and personalities that shaped the era. With unique insight into the Mozambican struggle and the tragic short-sightedness of U.S. policy, Conceiving Mozambique encourages a dispassionate re-examination of the movement's costs as well as its remarkable accomplishments.

Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2021): Adeshina Afolayan, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Samuel... Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2021)
Adeshina Afolayan, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba
R3,612 Discovery Miles 36 120 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume investigates alternative epistemological pathways by which knowledge production in Africa can proceed. The contributors, using different intellectual dynamics, explore the existing epistemological dominance of the West-from architecture to gender discourse, from environmental management to democratic governance-and offer distinct and unique arguments that challenge the denigration of the different and differing modes of knowing that the West considered "barbaric" and "primitive." This volume therefore constitutes a minimal gesture that further contributes to the ongoing discourse on alternative modes of knowing in Africa.

The Era of the Martyrs - Remembering the Great Persecution in Late Antique Egypt (Hardcover): Aaltje Hidding The Era of the Martyrs - Remembering the Great Persecution in Late Antique Egypt (Hardcover)
Aaltje Hidding
R3,612 Discovery Miles 36 120 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

One of the most traumatic experiences of Late Antique Christians was the Great Persecution, begun by Emperor Diocletian and his Tetrarchic colleagues in 303 CE. Here Aaltje Hidding unites research of traditional memory studies with work done by cognitive scientists to examine how they remembered the Persecution. The resulting methodological framework, the 'cognitive ecology', systemically studies all what can be covered by this term - social surroundings, cognitive artefacts and the physical environment - and bridges the gap between individual and collective memory. The author analyses the remembrance of the Persecution in three different regions along the Nile river. In Oxyrhynchus, the thousands of papyrus fragments found at the city's rubbish dump give a vivid image of the martyrs in the daily lives of the Oxyrhynchites. In Antinoopolis, known for the cult of the physician saint Colluthus, she zooms in on the rituals and practices at a martyr's sanctuary. Finally, in Dandara, the rich hagiographical dossier of the anchorite Paphnutius shows how old memories of the Persecution became mixed with new monastic experiences. The Bohairic and Greek Passion of Paphnutius appear in their first complete English translations.

Closing the Books - Governor Edward Carstensen on Danish Guinea 1842-50 (Hardcover): Tove Storsveen Closing the Books - Governor Edward Carstensen on Danish Guinea 1842-50 (Hardcover)
Tove Storsveen
R2,588 Discovery Miles 25 880 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Sitting on the terrace of the royal plantation Frederiksgave, his favourite retreat, Governor Edward Carstensen came to see the inevitable: Denmark had to give up her ¬possessions in Africa. As fate would have it, he came to be the instrument by which two centuries of Danish involvement on the Gold Coast was terminated, thereby making way for the emergence of the colonial system that developed there. After the abolition of the slave trade, Denmark had struggled to find ways and means to legitimate her continued stay at the Coast. At an early stage the Danes initiated a number of attempts to establish experimental plantations to cultivate export crops such as cotton, coffee and sugar. But a transition from slave trade to ¬legitimate products required stability and peace, and a need for control, which the rather limited Danish presence was not able to maintain. CLOSING THE BOOKS comprises a compilation of the official reports that the last Danish Governor sent home during his term of office at the Gold Coast. The reports reflect his personal views regarding the economic and political situations there, as well as his ideas on the "civilization of Africa."

Wives of the Leopard - Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Hardcover): Edna G. Bay Wives of the Leopard - Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Hardcover)
Edna G. Bay
R1,771 Discovery Miles 17 710 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"Wives of the Leopard" explores power and culture in a pre-colonial West African state whose army of women and practice of human sacrifice earned it notoriety in the racist imagination of late nineteenth-century Europe and America. Tracing two hundred years of the history of Dahomey up to the French colonial conquest in 1894, the book follows change in two central institutions. One was the monarchy, the coalitions of men and women who seized and wielded power in the name of the king. The second was the palace, a household of several thousand wives of the king who supported and managed state functions.

Looking at Dahomey against the backdrop of the Atlantic slave trade and the growth of European imperialism, Edan G. Bay reaches for a distinctly Dahomean perspective as she weaves together evidence drawn from travelers' memoirs and local oral accounts, from the religious practices of vodun, and from ethnographic studies of the twentieth century. Wives of the Leopard thoroughly integrates gender into the political analysis of state systems, effectively creating a social history of power. More broadly, it argues that women as a whole and men of the lower classes were gradually squeezed out of access to power as economic resources contracted with the decline of the slave trade in the nineteenth century. In these and other ways, the book provides an accessible portrait of Dahomey's complex and fascinating culture without exoticizing it.

Lahun (Hardcover): British School of Archaeology in Egypt Lahun (Hardcover)
British School of Archaeology in Egypt; Egyptian Research Account, Guy Brunton
R794 Discovery Miles 7 940 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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