Staff and students from the University of Kent were joined by colleagues from as far afield as South Africa at the launch of Giacomo Macola’s new monograph The Gun in Central Africa.

Buy from Ohio University Press
Buy from amazon.co.uk

Why did some central African peoples embrace gun technology in the nineteenth century, and others turn their backs on it? In answering this question, The Gun in Central Africa offers a thorough reassessment of the history of firearms in central Africa. Marrying the insights of Africanist historiography with those of consumption and science and technology studies, Giacomo Macola approaches the subject from a culturally sensitive perspective that encompasses both the practical and the symbolic attributes of firearms.

Informed by the view that the power of objects extends beyond their immediate service functions, The Gun in Central Africa presents Africans as agents of technological re-innovation who understood guns in terms of their changing social structures and political interests. By placing firearms at the heart of the analysis, this volume casts new light on processes of state formation and military revolution in the era of the long-distance trade, the workings of central African gender identities and honor cultures, and the politics of the colonial encounter.

Christine Whyte  and Andrew Cohen from the Centre for the History of Colonialisms provided commentary and fielded questions in the lively discussion following Dr Macola’s presentation of the book.