Book Description

The small but important region of Dahomey (now the People's Republic of Benin) has played an active role in the world economy throughout the era of mercantile and industrial capitalism, beginning as an exporter of slaves and becoming an exporter of plain oil and palm kernels. This book covers a span of three centuries, integrating into a single framework the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial economic history of Dahomey. Mr Manning has pieced together an extensive body of new evidence and new interpretations: he has combined descriptive evidence with quantitative data on foreign trade, slave demography and colonial government finance, and has used both Marxian and Neoclassical techniques of economic analysis. He argues that, despite the severe strain on population and economic growth caused by the slave trade, the economy continued to expand from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, and the colonial state acted as an economic depressant rather than a stimulant. ... Read more

Book Description

W. Joseph Campbell, longtime newspaper and wire service journalist, examines the wellsprings of independent journalism in francophone West Africa and challenges the gloomy assessments that typify many studies of the press in Africa. Campbell points to the little-recognized hardiness of independent journalism in a region often overlooked by scholars and students. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Not just Amazons...
We are talking about female soldiers with their own officers and uniforms, formed into units and trained to fight with muskets, machetes and their bare teeth. The first part of the book covers these subjects, plus the physical and insensitivity training they had to help them overcome pain and increase discipline.
The second part deals with their history in battle from their first use against other tribes to their last battles against the French before the kingdom's downfall.

A touch of history, a touch of war
Amazons of Black Sparta is good reading whether your interest is military or ethnographic.

The first half of the book is arranged topically, laying a groundwork for the campaigns that follow. Each chapter presents an aspect of Amazon life and the culture that produced it. The chapters stand alone, although the topics build on one another to give a well-rounded image of this unique fighting force.

I found the cultural descriptions fascinating and, for the most part, well-researched particularly because I live and work among a people that were once a part of the Dahomey kingdom. Many of the things Alpern describes are still a part of daily life in rural Benin (formerly Dahomey); others have disappeared with history. The memory of the Amazons, however, is still very alive and elders still tell stories of the women who tore trees out of the ground to use as clubs. Alpern has done a good job drawing from a variety of sources to separate fact from fiction and to produce believable yet amazing history.

The second half of the book will be more interesting to the military-minded. The chapters are arranged more chronologically and give accounts of battles, tactics, and the eventual downfall of Dahomey as an independent kingdom. Many of these places are easy to find today and the oral tradition lives on, although there are no battlefield markers or museums to commemorate them.

Stanley Alpern's style is smooth, easy reading, neither too technical nor too simplistic. For those who want a taste of the culture and a good understanding of the Amazons this is an excellent introduction. For those interested in an unusual military phenomenon and an account of military cultures colliding, this will spice up your library.

In any case, this book was well worth the price and the time it took to read.

The best-documented amazon warriors
The mythical Amazons of Greek legend were probably inspired by eye-witness reports of female cavalry soldiers of the ancient Russian steppe. But most historical record of those fierce Sarmatian, Sauromatean, and Scythian civilizations, except for some recently excavated kurgans, has been lost to time. Over a million women fought in the Soviet armed forces in World War ll. And Eritrean women have been fully integrated in combat for the past thirty years in that impoverished nation's civil war with Ethiopia. Most women warriors have fought in gender-integrated regiments under male command. None have been so thoroughly documented as the all-female regiments of Dahomey amazons. Author Alpern has done a remarkable job of translating those documents for a comprehensive history of this once-splendid African kingdom. As early as 1729, European traders recorded existence of the fighting-women of the Fon (Dahomey people) and their neighbors the Ashanti. Originally retained as an elite royal guard, Dahomey amazons held semi-sacred status as celibate warrior "wives" of the King. They prided themselves on their hardened physiques and highly-trained martial skills, and constantly strove to outperform their male counterparts. During two centuries of raids and wars against neighboring kingdoms, Dahomeyan women increased their reputation as merciless undefeatable opponants. By 1890 they comprised over 30 percent of the Dahomey fighting force. With considerable bloodshed, and at cost of some 2000 amazons' lives, the Fon were finally defeated by the French Foreign Legion in 1892. The commanders of the Legionaires wrote admiringly of the "incredible courage and audacity" of the amazons, who did not flinch from superior French firepower and made the "ulimate sacrifice for their King". The last surviving veteran of the female regiments died in 1979, four years after Dahomey achieved independence and changed its name to Benin. Mr. Alpern's fascinating book has rekindled interest in the amazons, who otherwise might have faded into obscurity. Recently the bimonthly magazine "Military History" published an article, apparently based on material from the book, about the final battle between the Dahomey amazons and their French conquerers.

A gem of a book for history buffs
This is truly a gem of a book for history buffs. It treats a heretofore unexplored topic in enlightening and fascinating detail. For professional historians also, Alpern's well-referenced history of the world's only known all-female fighting units is a singular contribution to the documentation of this unique combat force. Military aficionados should also consider this book essential reading for a more complete knowledge of the history of the world's fighting forces.

For more than 200 years the kings of Dahomey (in West Africa - now Benin) used large units of women warriors, under female command, as part of their regular troops in that nation's almost continuous annual conflicts with its neighbors. Although slow reading at first because of Alpern's meticulous adherence to detail, the book fairly races at the end as it describes the battles, triumphs, and ultimate defeat of the women troops by a modern French army. The author's research is all the more remarkable because of the utter lack of indigenous written records of these illiterate people. His glimpses into the history of the Dahomean Amazons had to be painstakingly extracted from records in several languages of various European visitors to that area of West Africa from the 17th to the early part of this century.

This book dovetails neatly with both African-American and women's studies. Not only were the Amazons of Dahomey fiercely independent and strong but much of the warfare conducted by the Fon (the people of Dahomey) was for the purpose of obtaining slaves for their own use and later to sell to European buyers for transport to the Americas. Only the lucky enemies of the Amazons became slaves, however, because their usual practice was to decapitate their captives to use their heads and skulls to display as war trophies.

The short chapter format of the book is beneficial because there is much to absorb that is unfamiliar to one who is used to reading western and Asian military history. Alpern's terminology is, per force, western and the reader must try to imagine what words like king, soldier, warrior, unit, etc. mean in the indigenous African context. Alpern succeeds in helping us understand the vast differences between our two military cultures. The only addition to the book that I would suggest to the author is a chapter on the religion of the Fon. He explains that much of the warfare of the Amazons was driven by adherence to certain unfathonable animistic beliefs. Otherwise the author does a superb job of describing everything from the clothing to tactics to the weapons of the Amazons.

This book is highly readable and is an essential addition to one's library of military history. ... Read more

Book Description

Traces the dominant historical, social, economic, and political features of Benin, and outlines the biographies of some of the most important personalities who have played a role in the Beninois public scene. ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from International Journal on World Peace, published by Professors World Peace Academy on September 1, 1999. The length of the article is 5425 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: THE EXPERIENCE OF BENIN.
Author: Noel Dossou-Yovo
Publication: International Journal on World Peace (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 1999
Publisher: Professors World Peace Academy
Volume: 16Issue: 3Page: 59

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

"The wealth of historiographic resources, the command of relevant literature, the ethnographic research and prudent use of oral traditions give this work a high degree of . . . intellectual excitement. . . . a landmark in the field." --Warren d'Azevedo

Making use of archival and oral resources in this extensively researched book, Paula Girshick Ben-Amos questions to what extent art operates as political strategy. How do objects acquire political meaning? How does the use of art enhance and embody power and authority? ... Read more

Reviews (1)

BENIN, PORTRAIT OF AN ANCIENT KINGDOM
Letter to Paula Girshick Ben-Amos, author of "Art, Innovation, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Benin." Your book, "Art Innovation, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Benin", is superb. I'm not a reviewer so the much I can see is that you lead us, the reader, easy and firmly across the ancient history of a Kingdom with her obas, uzamas, ezomos, iyases, chiefs -- and give us a handy list of the obas from Ehengbuda to Akengbuda, and teach us how they were, through the art they left behind. You make ease to understand the Civil War and different behave of various obas and chiefs. As well their relation with the spiritual world. When you refer to Father Monteleone, and the cloths "made in five or, at the most, six months" on pg. 41, using Ryder, you touch in a subject that has connection with Brazil. In the book "A enxada e a lança", (The Hoe and the Spear), the Brazilian writer Alberto da Costa e Silva depicts a panel of Africa, before the Portuguese's arrival (he starts his book on Africa's prehistory), and refers (pg. 526)to Pano da Costa (Cloth from the Coast - Ijebu), largely exported from Benin to Brazil on the first half of Eighteenth Century. It seems, later on, when the slave traffic has ended, and commerce between Bahia (Brazil) and West Coast was very strong, industrialized Pano da Costa, produced in Brazil has turned itself into a largely disputed merchandise all over the Coast, including in Benin . And moreover, in your book you teach us how to see and comprehend the bronzes, plaques, heads, in metal, ivory, clay and wood. Is all absolutely perfect. If one want to have a spotless ideas, in 177 pages, about the Kingdom of Benin, in your book one will find it. So, I indeed have enjoyed your book.

José Luiz Pereira da Costa Brazil e-mail: dacostaq@cpovo.net ... Read more

Book Description

The trans-Atlantic trade in slaves lasted for three centuries. Millions of Africans were forced to leave their places of birth and march to the coast to await their deportation to the European plantations on the other side of the ocean. The histories of West Africa and Surinam are thus inextricably entwined with the Dutch colonial past.

Laura Samsom Rous and Hans Samsom photographed the final section of the slave route lasting hundreds of kilometres that ended at the port of Ouidah in Benin on the Slave Coast of West Africa. They also took photographs of the king of Benin, whose forefathers had cooperated with the European slave traders.

They followed the trail to Suriname, photographing the inland, the village Tutubuka, and the Maroons themselves, the direct descendants of the slaves that managed to escape the plantations and fight for their freedom.

Laura Samsom Rous took the portrait photographs, and Hans Samsom used a panoramic camera with a rotating lens to photograph the landscape.Text in English, Dutch, French and Sranan. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Hauntingly beautiful, startling and thought provoking
This book is difficult to describe. On one level, it is gorgeous photography...for example, there is a photo of a couple dining in the shade of the palm grove on sun drenched beach at the bungalow hotel Auberge de la Diaspora. Out of context one would think, "Oh, what a lovely setting." In context, this grove is near the monument for "The Port of No Return," a monument at the coast in Ouidah symbolising the largest deportation known to man. This is an unusual approach, and the authors obviously have a deep respect for the people and the land. They include information about the slave trade in general, and its persistence to this day, with links to resources. ... Read more