- Hardcover: 504 pages
- Publisher: MIT Press (3 Jun 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 189095134X
- ISBN-13: 978-1890951344
- Product Dimensions: 23.3 x 16 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,147,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"Chretien brings three decades of scholarship and corresponding expertise to this comprehensive history..." Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A feast of information and analysis." Gail M. Gerhart Foreign Affairs "Africa enthusiasts will appreciate the maps of the Great Lakes..." Mary H. Meier Boston Globe "...anyone with an ancient interest in African affairs will benefit from this analysis." Kirkus Reviews "Chretien has undertaken the formidable task of tracing the roots of the region's violence..." John Shattuck The New York Times "A feast of information and analysis." Gail M. Gerhart Foreign Affairs "Africa enthusiasts will appreciate the maps of the Great Lakes..." Mary H. Meier Boston Globe "...anyone with an ancient interest in African affairs will benefit from this analysis." Kirkus Reviews "Chretien has undertaken the formidable task of tracing the roots of the region's violence..." John Shattuck The New York Times
Product Description
Though the genocide of 1994 catapulted Rwanda onto the international stage, English-language historical accounts of the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa--which encompasses Burundi, eastern Congo, Rwanda, western Tanzania, and Uganda--are scarce. Drawing on colonial archives, oral tradition, archeological discoveries, anthropologic and linguistic studies, and his thirty years of scholarship, Jean-Pierre Chretien offers a major synthesis of the history of the region, one still plagued by extremely violent wars. This translation brings the work of a leading French historian to an English-speaking audience for the first time.Chretien retraces the human settlement and the formation of kingdoms around the sources of the Nile, which were "discovered" by European explorers around 1860. He describes these kingdoms' complex social and political organization and analyzes how German, British, and Belgian colonizers not only transformed and exploited the existing power structures, but also projected their own racial categories onto them. Finally, he shows how the independent states of the postcolonial era, in particular Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, have been trapped by their colonial and precolonial legacies, especially by the racial rewriting of the latter by the former.Today, argues Chretien, the Great Lakes of Africa is a crucial region for historical research--not only because its history is fascinating but also because the tragedies of its present are very much a function of the political manipulations of its past.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This has to be one of the hardest books to read that I have ever come across. Chertien spends too much time being too critical of every piece of work that proceeded this work. An abundance of facts bog the reader down and stifles understanding. I am sorry I can not begin to put into words how depressed reading this made me feel. I kept skipping bits hoping that I would get to the bits where I could begin to understand what was being said,but no. If you love detail, detail, detail and more detail and want to have a dictionary open at all times, if you want to get bogged down lose the flow then this is for you. If you want an entertaining read that helps you understand this region one that challenges your present conception of The Great Lakes of Africa then this is not for you.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
Not for the Faint of Heart!
20 May 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is quite possibly one of the most detailed books ever written on the tribal history of the Great Lakes region. This book requires a lot of focus and is definitely a work to study rather than a relaxing read. The translation is very fluid and the tone flows well. Be prepared to have new and obscure tribes, tribal leaders, and regions introduced in an unsynchronized manner. The maps you need to decode the tribal miasma are located in the back of the book. That said, they are not all inclusive and you will have to have an internet connection to completely understand the nuances of the material presented. An example of the detail involved: "The religious dimensions of the mwami moreover tended to multiply among the ritualists of Bumbogo, for example, and northwest (Bushiru, Cyingogo, and Buhoma) and southwest (Bukunzi and Busozo) of the Rwandan cultural zone..." I could easily see this book as the backbone of a masters level course on the region. So, if you want a deep dive and are willing to expend a little energy this is a great book. If you are looking for a light read try something else.
Indispensable for understanding the 1994 Rwandan genocide
20 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've read a number of books on Rwanda and in particular the 1994 genocide. This book goes back in time two-thousand years describing what is known and postulated about east-central African cultures as they developed from earliest times to the present day. The author is very careful to separate evidence from conclusions and explores every facet of the region's human development from ancient mythologies, early labor practices, gradually expanding and sophisticated kingdoms,colonial contraditions and present day events. This book makes it clear that east-central Africa is culturally unique and that violence there, and all else there, can only be understood when the unique history of the region is understood.
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