Author: John Iliffe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521837859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
This is the first published account of the role played by ideas of honour in African history from the fourteenth century to the present day. It argues that appreciation of these ideas is essential to an understanding of past and present African behaviour. Before European conquest, many African men cultivated heroic honour, others admired the civic virtues of the patriarchal householder, and women honoured one another for industry, endurance, and devotion to their families. These values both conflicted and blended with Islamic and Christian teachings. Colonial conquest fragmented heroic cultures, but inherited ideas of honour found new expression in regimental loyalty, respectability, professionalism, working-class masculinity, the changing gender relationships of the colonial order, and the nationalist movements which overthrew that order. Today, the same inherited notions obstruct democracy, inspire resistance to tyranny, and motivate the defence of dignity in the face of AIDS.
Honour in African History
Author: John Iliffe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521837859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
This is the first published account of the role played by ideas of honour in African history from the fourteenth century to the present day. It argues that appreciation of these ideas is essential to an understanding of past and present African behaviour. Before European conquest, many African men cultivated heroic honour, others admired the civic virtues of the patriarchal householder, and women honoured one another for industry, endurance, and devotion to their families. These values both conflicted and blended with Islamic and Christian teachings. Colonial conquest fragmented heroic cultures, but inherited ideas of honour found new expression in regimental loyalty, respectability, professionalism, working-class masculinity, the changing gender relationships of the colonial order, and the nationalist movements which overthrew that order. Today, the same inherited notions obstruct democracy, inspire resistance to tyranny, and motivate the defence of dignity in the face of AIDS.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521837859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
This is the first published account of the role played by ideas of honour in African history from the fourteenth century to the present day. It argues that appreciation of these ideas is essential to an understanding of past and present African behaviour. Before European conquest, many African men cultivated heroic honour, others admired the civic virtues of the patriarchal householder, and women honoured one another for industry, endurance, and devotion to their families. These values both conflicted and blended with Islamic and Christian teachings. Colonial conquest fragmented heroic cultures, but inherited ideas of honour found new expression in regimental loyalty, respectability, professionalism, working-class masculinity, the changing gender relationships of the colonial order, and the nationalist movements which overthrew that order. Today, the same inherited notions obstruct democracy, inspire resistance to tyranny, and motivate the defence of dignity in the face of AIDS.
Fighting for Honor
Author: T. J. Desch-Obi
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643361937
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
A groundbreaking investigation into the migration of martial arts techniques across continents and centuries The presence of African influence and tradition in the Americas has long been recognized in art, music, language, agriculture, and religion. T. J. Desch-Obi explores another cultural continuity that is as old as eighteenth-century slave settlements in South America and as contemporary as hip-hop culture. In this thorough survey of the history of African martial arts techniques, Desch-Obi maps the translation of numerous physical combat techniques across three continents and several centuries to illustrate how these practices evolved over time and are still recognizable in American culture today. Some of these art traditions were part of African military training while others were for self-defense and spiritual discipline. Grounded in historical and cultural anthropological methodologies, Desch-Obi's investigation traces the influence of well-delineated African traditions on long-observed but misunderstood African and African American cultural activities in North America, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He links the Brazilian martial art capoeira to reports of slave activities recorded in colonial and antebellum North America. Likewise Desch-Obi connects images of the kalenda African stick-fighting techniques to the Haitian Revolution. Throughout the study Desch-Obi examines the ties between physical mastery of these arts and changing perceptions of honor. Including forty-five illustrations, this rich history of the arrival and dissemination of African martial arts in the Atlantic world offers a new vantage for furthering our understanding of the powerful influence of enslaved populations on our collective social history.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643361937
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
A groundbreaking investigation into the migration of martial arts techniques across continents and centuries The presence of African influence and tradition in the Americas has long been recognized in art, music, language, agriculture, and religion. T. J. Desch-Obi explores another cultural continuity that is as old as eighteenth-century slave settlements in South America and as contemporary as hip-hop culture. In this thorough survey of the history of African martial arts techniques, Desch-Obi maps the translation of numerous physical combat techniques across three continents and several centuries to illustrate how these practices evolved over time and are still recognizable in American culture today. Some of these art traditions were part of African military training while others were for self-defense and spiritual discipline. Grounded in historical and cultural anthropological methodologies, Desch-Obi's investigation traces the influence of well-delineated African traditions on long-observed but misunderstood African and African American cultural activities in North America, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He links the Brazilian martial art capoeira to reports of slave activities recorded in colonial and antebellum North America. Likewise Desch-Obi connects images of the kalenda African stick-fighting techniques to the Haitian Revolution. Throughout the study Desch-Obi examines the ties between physical mastery of these arts and changing perceptions of honor. Including forty-five illustrations, this rich history of the arrival and dissemination of African martial arts in the Atlantic world offers a new vantage for furthering our understanding of the powerful influence of enslaved populations on our collective social history.
A History of African Societies to 1870
Author: Elizabeth Isichei
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521455992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
This comprehensive and detailed exploration of the African past, from prehistory to approximately 1870, is intended to provide a fully up-to-date complement to the Cambridge History of Africa. Reflecting several emphases in recent scholarship, it focusses on the changing modes of production, on gender relations and on ecology, laying particular stress on viewing 'history from below'. A distinctive theme is to be found in its analyses of cognitive history. The work falls into three sections. The first comprises a historiographic analysis, and covers the period from the dawn of prehistory to the end of the Early Iron Age. The second and third sections are, for the most part, organised on regional lines; the second section ends in the sixteenth century; the third carries the story on to 1870. A second volume, now in preparation, will cover the period from 1870 to 1995. This book attempts a more rounded view of African history than most of the other textbooks on the subject addressed to a (largely) undergraduate level student. Earlier histories have tended to ignore some of the current foci in the scholarly literature on Africa, generally not reflected in the textbooks: these include discussions of topical issues like ecology and gender. Isichei's book is also more radical.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521455992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
This comprehensive and detailed exploration of the African past, from prehistory to approximately 1870, is intended to provide a fully up-to-date complement to the Cambridge History of Africa. Reflecting several emphases in recent scholarship, it focusses on the changing modes of production, on gender relations and on ecology, laying particular stress on viewing 'history from below'. A distinctive theme is to be found in its analyses of cognitive history. The work falls into three sections. The first comprises a historiographic analysis, and covers the period from the dawn of prehistory to the end of the Early Iron Age. The second and third sections are, for the most part, organised on regional lines; the second section ends in the sixteenth century; the third carries the story on to 1870. A second volume, now in preparation, will cover the period from 1870 to 1995. This book attempts a more rounded view of African history than most of the other textbooks on the subject addressed to a (largely) undergraduate level student. Earlier histories have tended to ignore some of the current foci in the scholarly literature on Africa, generally not reflected in the textbooks: these include discussions of topical issues like ecology and gender. Isichei's book is also more radical.
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004380183
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 537
Book Description
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as the clearest formulation of the book’s central focus on the relationship between political conjunctures and the production of sources. Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004380183
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 537
Book Description
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as the clearest formulation of the book’s central focus on the relationship between political conjunctures and the production of sources. Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.
The African Poor
Author: John Iliffe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521348775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
This history of the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa begins in the monasteries of thirteenth-century Ethiopia and ends in the South African resettlement sites of the 1980s. Its thesis, derived from histories of poverty in Europe, is that most very poor Africans have been individuals incapacitated for labour, bereft of support, and unable to fend for themselves in a land-rich economy. There has emerged the distinct poverty of those excluded from access to productive resources. Natural disaster brought widespread destitution, but as a cause of mass mortality it was almost eliminated in the colonial era, to return to those areas where drought has been compounded by administrative breakdown. Professor Iliffe investigates what it was like to be poor, how the poor sought to help themselves, how their counterparts in other continents live. The poor live as people, rather than merely parading as statistics. Famines have alerted the world to African poverty, but the problem itself is ancient. Its prevailing forms will not be understood until those of earlier periods are revealed and trends of change are identified. This is a book for all concerned with the future of Africa, as well as for students of poverty elsewhere.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521348775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
This history of the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa begins in the monasteries of thirteenth-century Ethiopia and ends in the South African resettlement sites of the 1980s. Its thesis, derived from histories of poverty in Europe, is that most very poor Africans have been individuals incapacitated for labour, bereft of support, and unable to fend for themselves in a land-rich economy. There has emerged the distinct poverty of those excluded from access to productive resources. Natural disaster brought widespread destitution, but as a cause of mass mortality it was almost eliminated in the colonial era, to return to those areas where drought has been compounded by administrative breakdown. Professor Iliffe investigates what it was like to be poor, how the poor sought to help themselves, how their counterparts in other continents live. The poor live as people, rather than merely parading as statistics. Famines have alerted the world to African poverty, but the problem itself is ancient. Its prevailing forms will not be understood until those of earlier periods are revealed and trends of change are identified. This is a book for all concerned with the future of Africa, as well as for students of poverty elsewhere.
Uncertain Honor
Author: Jennifer Johnson-Hanks
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226401812
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Offering an intimate look at the lives of African women trying to reconcile motherhood with new professional roles, the author argues that Beti women delay motherhood as part of a broader attempt to assert a modern form of honor only recently made possible by formal education, Catholicism, and economic change.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226401812
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Offering an intimate look at the lives of African women trying to reconcile motherhood with new professional roles, the author argues that Beti women delay motherhood as part of a broader attempt to assert a modern form of honor only recently made possible by formal education, Catholicism, and economic change.
A Matter of Honour
Author: Yoon Jung Park
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739135532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
The South African-born Chinese community is a tiny one, consisting of 10,000-12,000 members in a population of approximately 45 million. Throughout much of the history of this race-conscious country, this community has been ignored or neglected and officially classed along with people of mixed race or with Indians in the South African category of "Asiatic." Shaped by both external and internal forces, Chinese identities in South Africa are beginning to receive more media and scholarly attention as China's aid, trade, and investment in Africa grow and large numbers of new Chinese immigrants stream into South Africa and other African states. A Matter of Honour examines the shifting social, ethnic, racial, and national identities of Chinese South Africans over time. Using concepts of identity, ethnicity, race, nationalism, and transnationalism, and drawing on comparisons with other overseas Chinese communities, it explores the multilayered identities of the South African group and analyzes the ways in which their identities have altered with each generation. Yoon Jung Park's study breaks away from the often-narrow inquiries into ethnic and national identity in South Africa, offering valuable new perspectives on this shifting terrain of study. Book jacket.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739135532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
The South African-born Chinese community is a tiny one, consisting of 10,000-12,000 members in a population of approximately 45 million. Throughout much of the history of this race-conscious country, this community has been ignored or neglected and officially classed along with people of mixed race or with Indians in the South African category of "Asiatic." Shaped by both external and internal forces, Chinese identities in South Africa are beginning to receive more media and scholarly attention as China's aid, trade, and investment in Africa grow and large numbers of new Chinese immigrants stream into South Africa and other African states. A Matter of Honour examines the shifting social, ethnic, racial, and national identities of Chinese South Africans over time. Using concepts of identity, ethnicity, race, nationalism, and transnationalism, and drawing on comparisons with other overseas Chinese communities, it explores the multilayered identities of the South African group and analyzes the ways in which their identities have altered with each generation. Yoon Jung Park's study breaks away from the often-narrow inquiries into ethnic and national identity in South Africa, offering valuable new perspectives on this shifting terrain of study. Book jacket.
Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70
Author: Anne V. Adams
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke Publishing
ISBN: 9780956930705
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
These essays pay tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo through a broad spectrum of articles and personal memoirs from scholars of different generations and from other literary artists. The book is intended to convey the full parameters of Aidoo's place as a literary innovator and as an exponent of radical social and cultural thought in Africa and internationally, especially on issues of African self-consciousness and gender equality. Consisting of over 30 contributions, the collection includes studies of some popular-culture phenomena, which, reflect social and cultural concerns.
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke Publishing
ISBN: 9780956930705
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
These essays pay tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo through a broad spectrum of articles and personal memoirs from scholars of different generations and from other literary artists. The book is intended to convey the full parameters of Aidoo's place as a literary innovator and as an exponent of radical social and cultural thought in Africa and internationally, especially on issues of African self-consciousness and gender equality. Consisting of over 30 contributions, the collection includes studies of some popular-culture phenomena, which, reflect social and cultural concerns.
Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa
Author: Elisabeth McMahon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107025826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This book demonstrates the links between emancipation and the redefinition of honour among all classes of people on the island of Pemba.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107025826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This book demonstrates the links between emancipation and the redefinition of honour among all classes of people on the island of Pemba.
Prophet Without Honour
Author: F. A. Mouton
Publisher: Protea Boekhuis
ISBN: 9781869194147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Francois Stephanus Malan (1871-1940), an Afrikaner newspaper editor and politician, is one of the most complex figures in South African history. In an era of racism, oppression and exploitation when whites regarded blacks as a barbarous threat to their supremacy he refused to pander to these fears. With the fervor of an Old Testament prophet he argued that white survival could be secured only through the extension of equal political rights to all races. Yet he was also an Afrikaner nationalist, playing a leading role in the Cape Colony defending the volk's interests against British domination. But he desired a united, stable and prosperous South Africa in which, free of internal British control, Afrikaners and English-speakers could overcome their enmity and become one nation. The purpose of the book is to create a portrait, focusing on the facts that reveal his personality and the essence of his career: his liberalism, religious belief and progressive theological views, his Afrikaner nationalism and desire to create a South African nation by reconciling Afrikaners and English-speakers, as well as his anti-capitalist views.
Publisher: Protea Boekhuis
ISBN: 9781869194147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Francois Stephanus Malan (1871-1940), an Afrikaner newspaper editor and politician, is one of the most complex figures in South African history. In an era of racism, oppression and exploitation when whites regarded blacks as a barbarous threat to their supremacy he refused to pander to these fears. With the fervor of an Old Testament prophet he argued that white survival could be secured only through the extension of equal political rights to all races. Yet he was also an Afrikaner nationalist, playing a leading role in the Cape Colony defending the volk's interests against British domination. But he desired a united, stable and prosperous South Africa in which, free of internal British control, Afrikaners and English-speakers could overcome their enmity and become one nation. The purpose of the book is to create a portrait, focusing on the facts that reveal his personality and the essence of his career: his liberalism, religious belief and progressive theological views, his Afrikaner nationalism and desire to create a South African nation by reconciling Afrikaners and English-speakers, as well as his anti-capitalist views.