This collection of essays on pre-colonial sub-Saharan African military history is drawn from a number of academic journals and includes some which are considered milestones in African historiographical discourse, as well as others which, while lesser known, provide remarkable insight into the unique nature of African military history. Selections were made so as to produce an introduction to the understudied field of pre-colonial African military history that will be useful to specialists and non-specialists alike. The volume also contains an introduction which presents one of the first significant reviews of pre-colonial African military historiography ever attempted.

This is the first full study of the Turkana people of north-western Kenya and their armed resistance of the Turkana people of north-western Kenya to British colonial administration in the early twentieth century. From their first encounters with the colonial vanguard in the 1890s to the final surrender of the Great Diviner, Loolel Kokoi, in 1926, the Turkana resisted imperial conquest. Even after the imposition of colonial rule, they continued to oppose the administration through a variety of strategies. John Lamphear explores their responses to European colonialism and examines the nature of their resistance, making extensive use of oral sources, as well as archival and published material. His analysis takes full account of the military history of the period, and addresses the fundamental question of why some African societies met the European advance with armed resistance while others did not. In doing so, he makes an important contribution to the historiography of the imperial conquest of Kenya. This book is intended for scholars and students of modern African history; imperial and colonial historians; military historians; specialists in East African societies; historians of Ken