Grappling with the Beast

Peter Limb (Ph.D., W.Aust. 1997) is Associate Professor, History, Michigan State University. His books include Nelson Mandela (2008), Orb & Sceptre: Studies in British Imperialism and its Legacies (2008), The ANC’s Early Years and A. B. Xuma: Autobiography and Correspondence.Norman Etherington, (Ph.D., Yale 1971) is Professor, History, University of Western Australia. Recent publications include Missions and Empire (Oxford History of British Empire Companion Series) (2005) and The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815–1854 (2001).Peter Midgley (Ph.D., Alberta 2006) is Senior Editor, University of Alberta Press. Books include Sol Plaatje: An Introduction (1997) and a critical edition of The Diary of Iris Vaughan (2004), co-edited with Peter Alexander.

• General Editor's PrefaceList of contributorsList of mapsI: African Political, Social and Spatial Responses: Historical Perspectives1. Indigenous Southern Africans and Colonialism: Introduction, Norman Etherington2. Reactions to Colonialism in Southern Africa: Some Historiographical Reflections, Chris Saunders3. Fenders of Space: Kgatla Territorial Expansion under Boer and British Rule, 1840–1920, Fred Morton4. Intermediaries of Class, Nation, and Gender in the African Response to Colonialism in South Africa, 1890s–1920s, Peter LimbAppendix: Labour and intermediaries in 1890s Cape Colony5. Pastoral Modernity, Territoriality and Colonial Transformations in Central Namibia, 1860s to 1904, Dag Henrichsen6. Social and Political Responses to Colonialism on the Margins: Community, Chieftaincy and Ethnicity in Bulilima-Mangwe, Zimbabwe, 1890–1930, Enocent Msindo7. Conflict and Negotiation along the Lower Vaal River: Correspondence from the Tswana-Language Newspaper Mokaeri oa Becuana, Stephen C. Volz and Part T. MgadlaII: African Literary, Cultural, Intellectual and Religious Responses8. Renaissance Men: Ntsikana, A. C. Jordan, S. E. K. Mqhayi and South Africa’s Cultural Awakening, Peter Midgley9. African Intellectual & Literary Responses to Colonial Modernity in South Africa, Ntongela Masilela10. ‘Then Came the Whiteman’: An African Poet and Polemicist on the Fateful Encounter, Grant Christison11. World Visions: ‘Native Missionaries,’ Mission networks and Critiques of Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century South Africa and Canada, Tolly BradfordAppendix: A Letter by Tiyo Soga, 1871BibliographyIndex

"In sum, all the contributions provide stimulating and impressive accounts of the variety and complexity of indigenous responses to colonial contact and subjugation. [...] The volume goes further in debunking the simplistic dichotomies that characterised earlier writing on African reaction to conquest (collaborator/resister, modernist/traditionalist, etc.) and rejects some of the fashionable assumptions of the so-called Africanist and revisionist schools of historiography. In all, Grappling with the Beast is both timely and will no doubt further stimulate the unexpected but growing tide of interest in colonial and imperial history." - Andrew Manson, North-West University, Mafikeng, South African Historical Journal, 2012, 64:4, pp. 882-883 [DOI:10.1080/02582473.2012.708507]