Asante Identities

Tom McCaskie is Reader in Asante History, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham

It is difficult to put it down! The well-told stories, the wealth of information on subjects that are lamentably absent in most African historiography, and above all the successful attempt to put them in a meaningful context make it an outstanding piece of history. I know of no monograph on Africa that has combined analysis and empirical detail so succesfully. This book deserves to serve as a model for future Africanist historiography A study at the cutting edge of historical methodology. A wonderfully detailed portrait of life in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Asante as it was experienced by villagers caught up in an era of rapid and chaotic developments..not only scholars of Asante, but all African social historians, would benefit from a close reading of Asante Identities. It is difficult to put it down! The well-told stories, the wealth of information on subjects that are lamentably absent in most African historiography, and above all the successful attempt to put them in a meaningful context make it an outstanding piece of history. I know of no monograph on Africa that has combined analysis and empirical detail so succesfully. This book deserves to serve as a model for future Africanist historiography A study at the cutting edge of historical methodology. A wonderfully detailed portrait of life in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Asante as it was experienced by villagers caught up in an era of rapid and chaotic developments..not only scholars of Asante, but all African social historians, would benefit from a close reading of Asante Identities.