Age systems are involved in the competition for power. They are part of an institutional complex that makes societies fit to wage war. This book argues that in postcolonial North East Africa, with its recent history of national political conflict and civil and regional wars, the time has come to reemphasize the military and political relevance of age systems. Herein is new information about age systems in North East Africa, setting them firmly in a wider spatial and temporal context. Topics examined are regional age systems, the decline of some systems and the persistence of others, the way...
Age systems are involved in the competition for power. They are part of an institutional complex that makes societies fit to wage war. This book argue...
This study of the rainmakers of the Nilotic Sudan means a breakthrough in anthropological thinking on African political systems. Taking his inspiration from Rene Girard's theory of consensual scapegoating the author shows that the long standing distinction of states and stateless societies as two fundamentally different political types does not hold. Centralized and segmentary systems only differ in the relative emphasis put on the victimary role of the king as compared with that of enemy victims. Kings of Disaster so proposes an uninvolved solution to the vexed problem of regicide....
This study of the rainmakers of the Nilotic Sudan means a breakthrough in anthropological thinking on African political systems. Taking his inspiratio...
Designed to counter-balance the conventional emphasis on religious and ritual functions, this collection of papers re-evaluates the political aspect of age systems in the context of national politics, civil and regional wars. North America: Ohio U Press
Designed to counter-balance the conventional emphasis on religious and ritual functions, this collection of papers re-evaluates the political aspect o...
