Download or read book The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself and Other Writings written by Prempeh I (King of Ashanti) and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a key text for understanding the history of the great West African kingdom of Asante (now in Ghana). It is perhaps the earliest example of history writing in English by an African ruler. The result is an indispensably detailed account of the Asante monarchy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Context is provided by the inclusion of other writings by or about Agyeman Prempeh, together with four introductory essays by the world's leading scholars of Asante history.
Download or read book Our Own Way in This Part of the World written by Kwasi Konadu and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kofi Dᴐnkᴐ was a blacksmith and farmer, as well as an important healer, intellectual, spiritual leader, settler of disputes, and custodian of shared values for his Ghanaian community. In Our Own Way in This Part of the World Kwasi Konadu centers Dᴐnkᴐ's life story and experiences in a communography of Dᴐnkᴐ's community and nation from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth, which were shaped by historical forces from colonial Ghana's cocoa boom to decolonization and political and religious parochialism. Although Dᴐnkᴐ touched the lives of thousands of citizens and patients, neither he nor they appear in national or international archives covering the region. Yet his memory persists in his intellectual and healing legacy, and the story of his community offers a non-national, decolonized example of social organization structured around spiritual forces that serves as a powerful reminder of the importance for scholars to take their cues from the lived experiences and ideas of the people they study.
Download or read book Britain at War with the Asante Nation 1823 1900 written by Stephen Manning and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative military history chronicles the significant but overlooked colonial wars between the British and the Asante of West Africa. Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain fought three major wars, and two minor ones, with the Asante people of West Africa. Like the Zulus, the Asante were a warrior nation who offered a tough adversary for the British regulars. And yet these wars are rarely studied and little understood. In this insightful and vividly detailed volume, Stephen Manning sheds much-needed light on the history of this neglected colonial conflict. In the war of 1823–6, the British endured a defeat so absolute that the British governor’s head was severed and taken to the Asante king. Fifty years later, Sir Garnet Wolseley overcame many of the challenges British expeditionary forces faced in the jungle region known as ‘The White Man’s Grave’. Finally, the 1900 campaign culminated in the epic defeat of the Asante at the British fort in Kumasi. Stephen Manning’s account, which is based on Asante as well as British sources, offers a fascinating view from both sides of one of the most remarkable and protracted struggles of the colonial era.
Download or read book Great Kingdoms of Africa written by John Parker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking, sweeping overview of the great kingdoms in African history and their legacies, written by world-leading experts. This is the first book for nonspecialists to explore the great precolonial kingdoms of Africa that have been marginalized throughout history. Great Kingdoms of Africa aims to decenter European colonialism and slavery as the major themes of African history and instead explore the kingdoms, dynasties, and city-states that have shaped cultures across the African continent. This groundbreaking book offers an innovative and thought-provoking overview that takes us from ancient Egypt and Nubia to the Zulu Kingdom almost two thousand years later. Each chapter is written by a leading historian, interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including oral histories and recent archaeological findings. Great Kingdoms of Africa is a timely and vital book for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of Africa's rich history.
Download or read book Ashanti Gold written by Edward S. Ayensu and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dynasties written by Jeroen Duindam and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vibrant and broad-ranging study of dynastic power in the late medieval and early modern world.
Download or read book Africa s Hidden Histories written by Karin Barber and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Africa's Hidden Histories' takes a private and personal look into the world of everyday Africans, as they put pen to paper. As it explores the innovative, intense, and sociable interest in reading and writing, the text opens new avenues for understanding a rich and hidden history of Africa's creative expression.
Download or read book The Ghana Reader written by Kwasi Konadu and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering 500 years of Ghana's history, The Ghana Reader provides a multitude of historical, political, and cultural perspectives on this iconic African nation. Whether discussing the Asante kingdom and the Gold Coast's importance to European commerce and transatlantic slaving, Ghana's brief period under British colonial rule, or the emergence of its modern democracy, the volume's eighty selections emphasize Ghana's enormous symbolic and pragmatic value to global relations. They also demonstrate that the path to fully understanding Ghana requires acknowledging its ethnic and cultural diversity and listening to its population's varied voices. Readers will encounter selections written by everyone from farmers, traders, and the clergy to intellectuals, politicians, musicians, and foreign travelers. With sources including historical documents, poems, treaties, articles, and fiction, The Ghana Reader conveys the multiple and intersecting histories of Ghana's development as a nation, its key contribution to the formation of the African diaspora, and its increasingly important role in the economy and politics of the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Africa II 1 2020 written by AA. VV. and published by Viella Libreria Editrice. This book was released on 2020-03-18T18:06:00+01:00 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Articoli / Articles Jon Abbink, On “Good Governance”: Towards Reconciling State and Vernacular Views in Southwest Ethiopia Erika Grasso, Mapping a “Far Away” Town: Ethnic Boundaries and Everyday Life in Marsabit (Northern Kenya) Rosanna Tramutoli, A Sociolinguistic Description of Gíing’áwêakshòoda: A Register of Respect Among Barbaig Speakers in Tanzania Alice Bellagamba and Marco Gardini, What is a “Slave”? Neo-Abolitionism and the Shifting Meanings of Slavery in Two African Contexts (Highlands of Madagascar, Southern Senegal) Joanna Lewis, Dynasties and Decolonization: Chieftaincy, Politics and the Use of History at the Victoria Falls, from the Precolonial to the Post-independence Period Tom McCaskie, Alcohol and the Travails of Asantehene Osei Yaw Autori / Contributors
Download or read book Religion and Chieftaincy in Ghana written by Louise Müller and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2013 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive research ... and applying formidable expertise in African history, philosophy, historical anthropology and religious studies [this is] a superb analysis of the history and transformation of the roles of chieftaincy in the religious institutions, rituals and ideas among the Asante.
Download or read book Divine Rulers in a Secular State written by Timo Kallinen and published by Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. This book was released on 2016-03-25 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The divine kingship and chiefship of the Asante people of central Ghana have been undergoing a shift towards secularization since the start of the colonial era. Timo Kallinen maintains that a close examination of this transformation provides us with a better understanding of secularization processes in Ghana more broadly, and in other post-colonial societies whose historical development likewise differs from that of the modern West, and which have largely confronted secular modernity through encounters with European colonialism. Throughout the volume secularization is understood as a process in modern society whereby divinity is separated from the ways in which both human society is regulated and physical nature is understood to function. Divine Rulers in a Secular State has been divided into three thematic parts, each with a short theoretical introduction. In the first two, analysis is primarily inspired by the work of Louis Dumont, while in the third the theoretical ideas of Webb Keane and Bruno Latour are of central importance. The undifferentiated order of the pre-colonial Asante kingdom, in which the chiefly and priestly functions of the rulers were not separated, comprises the initial focus. Sacrifices and marriage exchanges, both of which were directed at establishing and perpetuating relations between the living and the spirits of the dead ancestors, are posited as the most important responsibilities of the chief. Also explored are perceptions that the founding of the kingdom and its authority structure are the results of sacrifices offered to various gods by the Asante king and his chiefs. The second part examines the dissolution of the traditional order since the onset of British colonial occupation. The secularization process was initiated by the aspirations of colonial administrators and missionary bodies who aimed to maintain Christian converts under the ‘political’ authority of their non-Christian chiefs, who were still important ritual leaders. Consequently, it was necessary to start dividing society along ‘political’ and ‘religious’ lines so that only the former was a mandatory concern for all. The kernel of modern citizenship was planted at the same time as the ‘religious’ conscience of individuals started to shape their rights and duties towards their ‘political’ rulers. Furthermore, theories about Asante as a state based on contract and representation were proposed and developed. In the post-colonial era chiefship has been put into the service of the independent nation state – both as an instrument of administration and a nationalistic symbol, while, most recently, chiefs have been depicted as leaders in civil society, even receiving support from global developmental organizations. Yet traditional chieftaincy is strongly criticized by certain Christian groups belonging to the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement, which still see it as integrally linked to traditional cosmologies. The third part of the book takes the discussion beyond the separation of the categories of religion and politics. Secularization has also has also entailed the dematerialization of religion, establishing it as something that ought to be understood primarily as mental or spiritual; in a secular society ‘things’ like deities, witchcraft, or sacrifices should not be recognized as proper agents and actions at the level of immanent relations. In Ghana such views are effectively contradicted by religious groups which see spiritual forces as the most powerful agents in social relations. The cases discussed deal with attempted state control of anti-witchcraft activities, the efficiency of protective magic during political upheavals, and Pentecostal notions of demonic influences in secular politics. The Conclusions section brings the themes of the book together by discussing the large-scale effects of the secular project in contemporary Ghanaian society. Research is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in Ghana in 2000–2001 and 2005–2006, data drawn from several archival sources located in Ghana and the United Kingdom, and the anthropological and historical literature on Ghana and the Asante.
Download or read book African Cities written by Francesca Locatelli and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-05-20 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Africa is undergoing a period of unprecedented urban expansion, which is throwing up new challenges in the provision of essential services and contentious questions about ownership of urban spaces. This volume explores the interconnections between these processes, whilst avoiding the tendency to forget that cities are also embedded in deeper historical processes that are integral to the framing of entitlements. Histories of migrancy and the creation of urban 'stranger' communities are fundamental in deciding who lives where and what this means, materially and socially. The gated communities that are springing up are often layered across older forms of urban segregation and/or segmentation. Urban water and food supply, the management of urban land claims, inequality and popular culture are closely examined.
Download or read book The Fall of the Asante Empire written by Robert B. Edgerton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, anthropologist Robert Edgerton tells the story of the Hundred-Year War—from 1807 to 1900, between the British Empire and the Asante Kingdom—from the Asante point of view. In 1817, the first British envoy to meet the king of the Asante of West Africa was dazzled by his reception. A group of 5,000 Asante soldiers, many wearing immense caps topped with three foot eagle feathers and gold ram's horns, engulfed him with a "zeal bordering on phrensy," shooting muskets into the air. The envoy was escorted, as no fewer than 100 bands played, to the Asante king's palace and greeted by a tremendous throng of 30,000 noblemen and soldiers, bedecked with so much gold that his party had to avert their eyes to avoid the blinding glare. Some Asante elders wore gold ornaments so massive they had to be supported by attendants. But a criminal being lead to his execution - hands tied, ears severed, knives thrust through his cheeks and shoulder blades - was also paraded before them as a warning of what would befall malefactors. This first encounter set the stage for one of the longest and fiercest wars in all the European conquest of Africa. At its height, the Asante empire, on the Gold Coast of Africa in present-day Ghana, comprised three million people and had its own highly sophisticated social, political, and military institutions. Armed with European firearms, the tenacious and disciplined Asante army inflicted heavy casualties on advancing British troops, in some cases defeating them. They won the respect and admiration of British commanders, and displayed a unique willingness to adapt their traditional military tactics to counter superior British technology. Even well after a British fort had been established in Kumase, the Asante capital, the indigenous culture stubbornly resisted Europeanization, as long as the "golden stool," the sacred repository of royal power, remained in Asante hands. It was only after an entire century of fighting that resistance ultimately ceased.
Download or read book Ghana written by Jeffrey Ahlman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few African countries have attracted the international attention that Ghana has. In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the then-colonial Gold Coast emerged as a key political and intellectual hub for British West Africa. Half a century later, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan state to emerge from European colonial rule, it became a key site for a burgeoning, transnational, African anticolonial politics that drew activists, freedom fighters, and intellectuals from around the world. As the twentieth century came to a close, Ghana also became an international symbol of the putative successes of post-Cold-War African liberalization and democratization projects. Here Jeffrey Ahlman narrates this rich political history stretching from the beginnings of the very idea of the "Gold Coast" to the country's 1992 democratization, which paved the way for the Fourth Republic. At the same time, he offers a rich social history stretching that examines the sometimes overlapping, sometimes divergent nature of what it means to be Ghanaian through discussions of marriage, ethnicity, and migration; of cocoa as a cultural system; of the multiple meanings of chieftaincy; and of other contemporary markers of identity. Throughout it all, Ahlman distills decades of work by other scholars while also drawing on a wide array of archival, oral, journalistic, and governmental sources in order to provide his own fresh insights. For its clear, comprehensive coverage not only of Ghanaian history, but also of the major debates shaping nineteenth- and twentieth-century African politics and society more broadly, Ghana: A Political and Social History is a must-read for students and scholars of African Studies.
Download or read book In My Time of Dying written by John Parker and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at how mortuary cultures and issues of death and the dead in Africa have developed over four centuries In My Time of Dying is the first detailed history of death and the dead in Africa south of the Sahara. Focusing on a region that is now present-day Ghana, John Parker explores mortuary cultures and the relationship between the living and the dead over a four-hundred-year period spanning the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Parker considers many questions from the African historical perspective, including why people die and where they go after death, how the dead are buried and mourned to ensure they continue to work for the benefit of the living, and how perceptions and experiences of death and the ends of life have changed over time. From exuberant funeral celebrations encountered by seventeenth-century observers to the brilliantly conceived designer coffins of the late twentieth century, Parker shows that the peoples of Ghana have developed one of the world’s most vibrant cultures of death. He explores the unfolding background of that culture through a diverse range of issues, such as the symbolic power of mortal remains and the dominion of hallowed ancestors, as well as the problem of bad deaths, vile bodies, and vengeful ghosts. Parker reconstructs a vast timeline of death and the dead, from the era of the slave trade to the coming of Christianity and colonial rule to the rise of the modern postcolonial nation. With an array of written and oral sources, In My Time of Dying richly adds to an understanding of how the dead continue to weigh on the shoulders of the living.
Download or read book Saltwater Slavery written by Stephanie E. Smallwood and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold, innovative book promises to radically alter our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade, and the depths of its horrors. Stephanie E. Smallwood offers a penetrating look at the process of enslavement from its African origins through the Middle Passage and into the American slave market. Saltwater Slavery is animated by deep research and gives us a graphic experience of the slave trade from the vantage point of the slaves themselves. The result is both a remarkable transatlantic view of the culture of enslavement, and a painful, intimate vision of the bloody, daily business of the slave trade.
Download or read book Imperial Incarceration written by Michael Lobban and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nineteenth-century Britons, the rule of law stood at the heart of their constitutional culture, and guaranteed the right not to be imprisoned without trial. At the same time, in an expanding empire, the authorities made frequent resort to detention without trial to remove political leaders who stood in the way of imperial expansion. Such conduct raised difficult questions about Britain's commitment to the rule of law. Was it satisfied if the sovereign validated acts of naked power by legislative forms, or could imperial subjects claim the protection of Magna Carta and the common law tradition? In this pathbreaking book, Michael Lobban explores how these matters were debated from the liberal Cape, to the jurisdictional borderlands of West Africa, to the occupied territory of Egypt, and shows how and when the demands of power undermined the rule of law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
