Category Archives: Book launch

Centre Book launch

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.

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9780821422113Why 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.

The Gun in Central Africa

Small man with a big gunGiacomo Macola’s monograph, The Gun in Central Africa is now available to pre-order with a 30% discount on regular prices.

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.

Centre PhD Student publication launch

University of Mauritius Invitation to the launch of ‘Evading Enslavement in the Seychelles’ by Peter Nicholls

Peter Nicholls, a PhD student associated with the centre, recently delivered a public address at the University of Mauritius as part of an event celebrating the publication of his Masters’ thesis. ‘Evading Enslavement in the Seychelles’ uncovers a vital piece of the history of resistance to slavery in the Indian Ocean. The booklet has been printed in both English and French and demand has already exceed supply!

The event was covered in detail by a local online magazine: HISTOIRE: À lire en marge du 1er février (article text in French).

Book launch by Birmingham University Authors

Three members of the University of Birmingham’s Department of African Studies and Anthropology will be discussing their recently published monographs at the London Review of Books bookshop in Bloomsbury at 7pm on 15 January 2016.

  • Maxim Bolt’s Zimbabwe’s Migrants and South Africa’s Border Farms: The Roots of Impermanence
  • Benedetta Rossi’s From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000
  • Kate Skinner’s The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland: Literacy, Politics and Nationalism, 1914-2014

Free tickets for this event are available from Eventbrite.