Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the variorum editions which have been published by Ashgate for many years. These volumes habitually collect long sequences of re-printed but un-edited articles which, together, are designed by a suitably expert editor to provide a reader with a selection of the best scholarship on a given subject; scholars whose work is included have every reason to be pleased to learn that some of their efforts are perceived to have had lasting value. Few of these editions have been directly concerned with Africa. This collection, edited by John Lamphear, joins the publisher's extensive International Library of Essays on Military History. The 22 articles to be found here are drawn from a variety of journals although more than a third of them are drawn from this one. The earliest is a fine piece by Jacob Ajayi on Yoruba professional soldiers which first saw the light of day in Tarikh over forty years ago; the most recent is an equally stimulating essay by Richard Reid on Ganda militarism, which appeared in Azania in 1999.

Lamphear's long, thoughtful introduction is a significant contribution to the historiography of Africa. He points out with considerable justification that military history, especially precolonial African military history which is the focus of this collection, has until recently been a relatively ignored sub-discipline; it has been, Lamphear says, ‘generally unfashionable’ (p. xiii). Despite this, he was obliged to consider over 300 articles before selecting the pieces included here. For the general reader he explains with sensitivity the complex reasons for our earlier diffidence, such as the dearth of sources and the coyness of political correctness. And on a more optimistic note he concludes that African military history might be ‘about to emerge as a respected sub-discipline’; but one hopes that one of the reasons he gives for this – ‘As African populations continue to be engulfed by violence, military studies will take on vital relevance’ (p. xiii) – is overly pessimistic. And his considered aperçu about an expanding sub-discipline is somewhat undermined by the absence of any articles published in the twenty-first century in this collection.

Commendably the editor has elected to publish articles which illustrate the military history of all of Africa, from Cape to Cairo. And few of us would contest his choice of major themes in this specific historiography – the significance of cavalry and of firearms, the debate over the ‘gun/slave cycle’, the role of military force in state formation, the mfecane, for example. But his decision to limit the collection to those articles which deal with the precolonial period only is more equivocal. The reasons advanced for this are not entirely convincing, even if one sympathizes with his editorial apprehension about having to make a selection from something like 600 articles had he extended his chronological ambit beyond the precolonial period. He is certainly correct to stress, for example, that the theme of African resistance to colonialism has been anything other than ignored in the development of our field and is well represented in numerous collections. But the coming of colonialism only rarely brought about an abrupt caesura, an absolute ending of soldierly ways of seeing and doing; in some cases, and parts of the Horn of Africa are especially suggestive in this respect, colonialism itself had only a slight impact upon social structures which had long had important military sinews and were to continue to do so, albeit in much altered ways, into the present. Similarly, looking at the tragic, recent history of the inter-lacustrine region and the badlands of the eastern DR Congo, some representation of the admirable literature on the role of war-lords in the early colonial period might have demonstrated the value of historical studies to contemporary understanding.

Collections seldom satisfy all of their readers. Despite the criticisms above, this is an admirable, sensitively selected edition with a helpful analytical introduction; we are accordingly in John Lamphear's debt. That said, this is by its very nature a reference work which will be used – and footnoted – by many in the years to come. The proof-reading glitches are too numerous for a work of this sort. The table of contents begins this list by being unable to spell Martin Klein's name, an error repeated twice on p. xxi and again on p. xxxv; on p. xix, the names of Stanley Engerman and Kristin Mann are mis-spelt, as are those of Patrick Harries on p. xxii and p. xxxiv, Larry Yarak on p. xxiv, and Aylward Shorter thrice on p. xxxix. Readers who are new to African historical studies, consulting the editor's introductory bibliography, might wonder whether J. J. Guy is the same scholar as Jeff Guy, whether Sue Miers is the same person as Suzanne Miers, or whether R. J. Reid also writes as Richard Reid. Although many authors alter the ways in which they sign their work over time, these changes are not bibliographically explained. And lastly, while this work is very welcome, and despite the criticisms the applause is sincere, one wonders what future such editions have in this brave new world of Internet access to learned journals. This reviewer is not a geek and has not surfed the Net to discover how many of the articles reproduced here can be consulted electronically. Given the price of this book, such a search might prove to be literally rewarding.