15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Indispensible Work for Serious Readers and Collectors, July 19, 1999
This review is from: AFRICAN ARMS & ARMOR (Hardcover)
The author, Christopher Spring is Curator, Department of Ethnography, of the British Museum. Thus he is well accquainted with the sources and has made excellent use of first-hand accounts, museum and sales catalogs, and ethnographical and typological studies to synthesize this general overview of the subject. He states in his introduction: "This book is primarily intended to celebrate African artistry and ingenuity. It also attempts to show the way in which arms and armor are incorporated into the complex material systems which express the structure of non-industrial societies....I believe that to underrate the significance of these artefacts within the societies which produced them would be to overlook a whole range of human endeavour and activity."
The book contains a Foreword, Introduction, and eight chapters on each cultural region of Africa. 1.Arab and Berber--North Africa and the Sahara, 2. Knights of the Savanna--Warfare in Sudanic Africa, 3. Forest Kingdoms of West Africa, 4. The Shining Mystery--Throwing Knives of Africa, 5. Royal Blacksmiths--the Kuba Kingdom and the Congo Basin, 6. the Horn of Africa, 7. Cattle and Conflict--East African Pastorialists and Their Neighbors. 8. Mfecane--The Zulu and the Nguni Diaspora. There are 30 color and 130 grey scale illlustrations. Biblio and index.
Though some historians and ethnographers divide the continent of Africa into North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, referring to the latter as Black Africa (in French, l'Afrique noire), and omitting the former as a subject of African studies, preferring to include it in studies of Mediterrainea and Europe proper, there is just as much justification for including in this work, as for leaving out, the Maghreb area of Northwest Africa, conquered by the Islamic expansion and still ruled by descendents of the followers of the Prophet.
There has always been trade and conquest across the Sahara and up and down the Nile Valley. In fact, what is known today as Morocco leather, is actually a product of the Arabized black cultures located in the area today known as northern Nigeria. Their weapons and fighting arts are covered in Chapter Two.
The only chapter which covers more than one culture is Four, describing the famous fabulously shaped (to European eyes) throwing knives.
One of the major points made by the author and by the writer of the Forward, is that within the major civilizations of Eurasia and the Americas, once they had organized the means of production, resulting in a surplus that could support a "non-producer" class of rulers, priests, and administrators, there arose a tradition of "art for art's sake." The "Western World" artistic tradition led to all sorts of misconceptions when the European expansionists encountered the indigenous peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the material culture is and was expressed in a holistic manner, in which weapons and other material objects such as statues and ceremonial masks and clothing , however fantastically adorned or shaped, considered with a European's sensibility, were not created with any sort of artistic (art for art's sake) sensibility.
Thus the copying of African sculptural forms by Eurocentric artistic avant garde in the beginning of the twentieth century, was a total misreading of the intent of the creators.
The other major points the author makes is that when the Eurocentric aesthetic sensibility was applied to African material culture; one, items were devoid of context, and, two, in many cases both weapons and edged tools were ignored; in some cases they are the same thing. This sensibility says essentially "war is bad, therefore the tools of war are bad." and not worthy of study by a true aesthete.
Compare this attitude which is refuted by major collections of medieval European arms and armor, including those held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another reason for this disdain and omission may be "Work is sweaty and sweat is nasty, therefore tools are nasty and unworthy of study."
Fortunately this silly sensibility is today mostly recognized for the fallacy it is. A society which collects such material culture as gasoline pump globes, Pez dispensers, and all the other marvelous junk of our modern civilization can hardly ignore items seriously created for culturally significant purposes, whatever their symbolism or usage.
In summary, this book is a comprehensive survey of its subject with a definite point of view which I agree with, but it would be none the less valuable as a synthesis if I did not. And there are plenty of leads to further study.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A rare opportunity, July 26, 2010
This review is from: AFRICAN ARMS & ARMOR (Hardcover)
Great book for those interested in weapons from all over the world. I read this book after reading the fantasy novel, TIMBUKTU CHRONICLES: AIDA AND THE CHOSEN SOLDIER by Anthony N. Kwamu. I was taken aback and wanted to know whether the weapons and military organizations of the fantasy novel were a historical fact or just pure fantasy. Chris Spring's book certainly provided the answer. AFRICAN ARMS AND ARMOUR not only talk about the weapons, but it also provides many excellent historical accounts of the weapons in use throughout history. It was fascinating to learn that African weapons were not restricted to just spears and hide shields like many may believe today, but they also had as wide a variety of weapons as could be found anywhere in the world, complete with swords, bows, cavalry, and even armor. This is a good book to read for not only weapons enthusiasts, but also history buffs.
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