Tears of Rain: Ethnicity and History in Central Western Zambia -- book offer

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however, if you just want access to the text, without coveting the physical copy, click here for a full PDF (slightly different pagination from the printed version)

 

ONCE UNAFFORDABLE (£45), NOW AVAILABLE PRACTICALLY FREE OF CHARGE:

By special arrangement with the publishers, Kegan Paul International, London/Boston, we are able to make you a very special offer of an internationally acclaimed contribution to African Studies and to oral-historical method for the study of the pre-literate past

TEARS OF RAIN

Ethnicity and History in Central Western Zambia

Wim van Binsbergen

HARDBACK EDITION!

published in 1992 by Kegan Paul International Limited
PO Box 256, London WC1B 3SW, United Kingdom

Binsbergen, Wim van
London [etc.]: Kegan Paul International, 1992.— (Monographs from the African Studies Centre, Leiden).—With index, bibliography, illustrations, tables, 495 pp.
ISBN 90-5448-014-9

An exclusively Zambian, low-price paperback edition was published in 1994 by arrangement with the original publishers (Kegan Paul International), the African Studies Centre (Leiden) and the Zabian Education Publishing House; it is now out of print

TEARS OF RAIN. This study of the Nkoya people in central western Zambia examines the fascinating ways in which ethnicity both creates and feeds upon, ethno-history. It also assesses the possibility of reconstructing objective historical processes in that region since the sixteenth century A.D. The work sheds an unexpected light on the southern periphery of the Lunda political culture, on the nature of political relations in the eastern periphery of Barotseland in the nineteenth century, the role of gender relations in state formation, the redefinition of African political leadership in the context of the colonial and post-colonial state, and the impact of colonial, Christian and academic conceptualisations regarding popular modes of history in Africa.

Above all, this is a book about that fundamental act of scholarship — reading. Specifically, the reading of works of literate ethno-history which form an increasingly important category of sources for modern African historiography. Tears of Rain is largely based upon one such source the extensive and brilliant Likota lya Bankoya. In his analysis, van Binsbergen addresses himself to the questions of how the reading of such sources is to be informed by anthropological theory, by oral and documentary sources from the region, and by techniques of close reading and linguistic analysis seldom applied in Africanist social-science discourse.

for bio-bibliographical details on the author, see vitae and list of publications in this Website

 

APPRAISALS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL AUTHORITATIVE JOURNALS IN THIS FIELD:

‘van Binsbergen has something fundamental to say to historians and anthropologists in general, and not just to those who are specialised in Central Africa. To the latter, however, this work is both manna from heaven and a succulent bone for future contention... May his example be followed!’ (Jan Vansina, Anthropos)

‘a model contribution to our understanding of African ethnicity and history’ (Robert Papstein, Journal of African History)

‘this is an extraordinary and beautiful book -- a monument to ‘‘an irresponsibly large number of years’’ (p. xvii) of detailed and painstaking scholarship’ (James Ferguson, Africa)

 

SPECIAL OFFER

The publishers, Kegan Paul International, London/Boston, have cleared their stocks, and by special arrangement with them we are able to make you a very special offer:

Tears of Rain is now being given away free

however, in order to cover the costs of administration and postage we have to charge you Dfl 25.-- (US$ 14.--; Euro 12.--) for each copy

Kindly order this book from:

the Publications Officer
Mr Karl Dorrepaal
African Studies Centre
P.O. Box 9555
2300 RB Leiden
THE NETHERLANDS
tel: 00-31-71-5273372
fax: 00-31-71-5273344
e-mail: dorrepaal@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

or contact the author personally by clicking the present link

Table of contents

Preface and acknowledgements

Part I. Tears Of Rain: Ethnicity And History In Central Western Zambia 1

Chapter 1. The contemporary point of departure: The Nkoya-speaking people and their chiefs, p. 3

Chapter 2. The LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA manuscript, p. 53

Chapter 3. Historical criticism of LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA, p. 99

Chapter 4. State formation in central western Zambia as depicted in LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA, p. 155

Chapter 5. State and society in nineteenth-century central western Zambia: Regalia legal aspects, ideology and gender, p. 197

Chapter 6. LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA as cosmology and as history Aspects of Nkoya symbolism and its transformations, p. 239

Part II. Likota lya Bankoya: Edited Nkoya Text 269

Part III. The History Of The Nkoya People English Translation 349

Part IV. Reference Material 419

Appendix 1. A description of the constituent parts of the LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA manuscript

Appendix 2. Variants of the LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA manuscript

Appendix 3. Genealogies constructed on the basis of the text of LIKOTA LYA BANKOYA

Appendix 4. List of published texts in the Nkoya language

Appendix 5. List of oral sources

Appendix 6. List of archival sources and district files consulted

Appendix 7. Zinkena in western Zambia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

References cited

Author index

Subject index

SPECIAL OFFER

The publishers, Kegan Paul International, London/Boston, have cleared their stocks, and by special arrangement with them we are able to make you a special offer:

Tears of Rain is now being given away free

however, in order to cover the costs of administration and postage we have to charge you Dfl 25.-- (US$ 14.--; Euro 12.--) for each copy

Kindly order this book from:

the Publications Officer
Mr Karl Dorrepaal
African Studies Centre
P.O. Box 9555
2300 RB Leiden
THE NETHERLANDS
tel: 00-31-71-5273372
fax: 00-31-71-5273344

or contact the author personally by clicking the present link

however, if you just want access to the text, without coveting the physical copy, click here for a full PDF (slightly different pagination from the printed version)

 

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page last modified: 30-03-04