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Magomero: Portrait of an African Village
by Landeg White
Available from Amazon
$37.60
|
Features
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press September 29, 1989
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521389097
ISBN-13: 978-0521389099
Product Dimensions:
9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
Product Review
"Beautifully written, with a novelist's feel for story-telling and a poet's sensitivity to people and placea work of meticulous scholarshipa major work of Malawian history, the most informative account to have been published on economic and social change in any part of the country." Journal of African History
"Magomero is not only beautifully written, but informed by a fine and appropriate sense of historical ironyin its historical perspective, its sensitivity to present local perceptions of the past, and above all for the manner in which it is written, it offers a model for the advancement of ethnography." Man
"Landeg White's elegant book is something of a minor masterpiece and may well influence writing about Africa more than its size, or the importance of its subject, would suggest at firstthis book is a model of how to treat weighty matters with a lightness of touch and a readability that are wholly admirable." American Historical Review
Book Description
An insider's view of African historians' principal concerns--the slave trade, Christian missions, colonialism, land alienation and nationalism--is presented through this personalized account of a Malawi village from 1859 to the present.
Reader Reviews
Now, there's no empirical way to prove the above statement, but given the dominance of social-science conventions in writing on African history, "Magomero" is an obvious front-runner. Landeg White is a gifted literary stylist, and this book often reads like a novel (when someone says that, make sure they're not thinking of "Finnegan's Wake"). It is a study of a village in southern Malawi (colonial Nyasaland) over 100+ years, but it is much more than that too. White's sense of drama is aided by some highly dramatic personages who figure prominently in his story. The most famous is missionary-explorer David Livingstone, a perennially fascinating, complex and influential shaper of the continent's destiny. He visited Magomero, site of the ill-fated Universities' Mission to Central Africa, frequently on two expeditions in the 1850s and 1860s. White perceptively examines the ambiguities of Livingstone's antislavery crusade, not least the paradox of purchasing slaves in order to free them---thus inadvertently stimulating the market. But John Chilembwe is just as interesting: a Malawian Protestant minister and protonationalist who studied in the USA, founded an independent mission, and eventually died leading a doomed rebellion against British rule in 1915. The later chapters are not as event-oriented, but the lucid accounts of cash cropping and womens' work are probably more representative of daily life in the colonial era, and a major contribution to social and economic history. "Magomero" does not have detailed source notes (they tend to scare off the mass audience White aims for here), but references to scholars' names without the titles of their works ensure that only specialists can swiftly identify White's sources. The other problem is that the author's own account of villagers' accepting his presence and explanation of his research is awkwardly unconvincing; it would be more credible in the words of Malawians themselves, without assuming that they care about associations with long-dead muzungus (Europeans). These minor faults aside, this is the most enjoyable scholarly book I've come across in nearly 20 years in African Studies. For more on the area's history, see E. Mandala, "Work and Control in a Peasant Economy" and M. Vaughan, "The Story of an African Famine." G. Shepperson & T. Price, "Independent African," a classic on Africa, tells the Chilembwe story with great depth and sensitivity. For an authentic Nyasaland account based on oral data from participants in the Rising, see G.S. Mwase, "Strike a Blow and Die."
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Magomero: Portrait of an African Village
by Landeg White
Available from Amazon
$37.60
|
|
