Winner of the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association

The Benue River Valley is the source of some of the most abstract, dramatic, and inventive sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. A vast region, the Valley extends from the heart of present-day Nigeria eastward to its border with Cameroon, and is home to a large number of ethnic and linguistic groups, all of whom have produced sculptures that are remarkable for their variety.

This book brings together figurative wood sculptures and ceramic vessels, masks, and elaborate...

Winner of the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association

The Benue River Valley is the source of some of the most abstract, dramatic, and inventive sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. A vast region, the Valley extends from the heart of present-day Nigeria eastward to its border with Cameroon, and is home to a large number of ethnic and linguistic groups, all of whom have produced sculptures that are remarkable for their variety.

This book brings together figurative wood sculptures and ceramic vessels, masks, and elaborate...

..".this specialist-oriented volume is a rich contribution to the literature on this region. Notably it seems directed as much toward the ongoing historiographical conversation in Bali itself as it is toward external scholars." JASO Online

..".constitutes an outstanding contribution in the study of history outside the traditional perspective of recourse to narrative sources (whether these be oral or written)." African Affairs

"This amazing book...represents a model for scholars seeking to blend the tools of history writing and political/ cultural anthropology; its value is applicable...

This is the first collection of Franz Steiner's keynote papers on comparative economics and the classification of labor, complemented by major unpublished texts on politics, civilization, and cultural criticism. This enables a complete re-evaluation of Steiner's thought. His ideas on truth, value, and civilization are highly critical of Western culture and offer perhaps the earliest critique of Orientalism in British anthropology. Equally significant is the inclusion of Steiner's unpublished lectures on Aristotle and Simmel, the latter probably being the first lecture series devoted to...

Franz Steiner's study of Taboo is internationally recognized as a classic in its field. In a newly researched introductory chapter, based on a thorough study of Steiner's unpublished papers, this edition for the first time places the book in its context and offers a new reading of the text. More than just a critique of existing taboo theories, as it has often been seen, this study offers a profound analysis of danger behavior and pollution in "non-civilized" societies. This provided an important starting-point for Mary Douglas' Purity and Danger. A key aspect of Steiner's achievement lies...