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  1. Home
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  3. Warfare in African History
  • Cited by 69
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2012
Online ISBN:
9781139043090
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139043090
Subjects:
Area Studies, African Studies, History, African History
Series:
New Approaches to African History (6)
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Book description

This book examines the role of war in shaping the African state, society, and economy. Richard J. Reid helps students understand different patterns of military organization through Africa's history; the evolution of weaponry, tactics, and strategy; and the increasing prevalence of warfare and militarism in African political and economic systems. He traces shifts in the culture and practice of war from the first millennium into the era of the external slave trades, and then into the nineteenth century, when a military revolution unfolded across much of Africa. The repercussions of that revolution, as well as the impact of colonial rule, continue to this day. The frequency of coups d'états and civil war in Africa's recent past is interpreted in terms of the continent's deeper past.

Reviews

‘At long last, we have a scholarly book that effectively integrates the seemingly bewildering array of recent conflicts in Africa into a longer historical narrative about African social life. Admirably synthesizing vast amounts of historical research, Warfare in African History retains great readability, making it an accessible and necessary corrective to simplistic and ahistorical understandings of violent conflict in contemporary Africa. In revealing both the transformative and destructive capacities of warfare across the vast temporal and geographic sweep of African history, this book humanizes Africa’s histories of violence. In so doing, it changes how we think about African social, cultural and military history, and opens exciting new avenues towards including Africa in global military histories.’

Michelle Moyd - Indiana University

‘In this bold and impressive synthesis of historical experiences of warfare in Africa, Reid advances important insights about common elements of warfare that are woven through the longue duree of Africa’s political development. This book will become a classic, a must-read.’

William Reno - Northwestern University

‘While modern Africa is often characterized by violence, the longer scope of organized violence in African history is not as well studied. Richard Reid’s comprehensive survey of African warfare places it fully in its social and ecological contexts, tying war to state formation, the slave trade and modern state functioning. His work is wide ranging, intellectually engaging and not afraid to make broad and interesting generalizations, based on an extensive reading of dispersed sources.’

John K. Thornton - Boston University

‘Only Richard Reid has the grasp of the sweep of African history, and the place of conflict in it, to write this book. I only wish it had been available when I began to research the subject. Students, scholars and interested general readers will all profit from its timely appearance.’

Bruce Vandervort - editor of the Journal of Military History and author of Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914

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