| Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa Contributor(s): Fabian, Johannes (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0520221230 ISBN-13: 9780520221239 Publisher: University of California Press OUR PRICE: $33.61 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2000 Annotation: "This subtle and original book is an anthropology of anthropologists, an exploration of explorers. We have for much too long looked at the records of the late 19th-century European travelers to Central Africa mainly as source material--sometimes reliable, sometimes not--about Africa. Fabian holds these visitors' accounts up to a mirror and looks at what they show about Europe's own assumptions, prejudices, and dreams."--Adam Hochschild, author of "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa "This remarkable book explodes all the old myths about European explorers in Africa while at the same time advancing a subtle and far-reaching critique of conventional ideas of scientific rationality. Fabian's insightful analysis of the literature of exploration provides the grounds for a provocative and very contemporary argument about colonial reason and the conditions of ethnographic understanding."--James Ferguson, author of "Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - History | Africa - Central - History | Expeditions & Discoveries |
| Dewey: 967 |
| LCCN: 99088221 |
| Lexile Measure: 1360 |
| Physical Information: 0.88" H x 6.11" W x 8.97" (1.10 lbs) 335 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - African - Cultural Region - Central Africa |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Explorers and ethnographers in Africa during the period of colonial expansion are usually assumed to have been guided by rational aims such as the desire for scientific knowledge, fame, or financial gain. This book, the culmination of many years of research on nineteenth-century exploration in Central Africa, provides a new view of those early European explorers and their encounters with Africans. Out of Our Minds shows explorers were far from rational--often meeting their hosts in extraordinary states influenced by opiates, alcohol, sex, fever, fatigue, and violence. Johannes Fabian presents fascinating and little-known source material, and points to its implications for our understanding of the beginnings of modern colonization. At the same time, he makes an important contribution to current debates about the intellectual origins and nature of anthropological inquiry.
|