Robert B. Edgerton

I think this is an important work that has received too little attention. The author gives examples of societies that have dysfunctional customs, such as making certain nutritious foods taboo for pregnant women, chopping off a finger joint to mourn a relative's death, food binding. Anthropologists of the functionalist school have assumed that all of a society's customs fit together in a functional whole. Edgerton feels that this attitude is part of Western culture's tendency to idealize the primitive--a reaction we can see as far back as the Roman Tacitus' comments on the Germans. He argues that we need to learn how to recognize and change harmful customs without dismantling the entire culture. I actually wrote a much longer and more detailed review of this book when I read it in 1996, but, alas, changes in computer systems result in unintended losses of material.… (meer)

First, why was I attracted to this book? A few years ago we went on a (spectacular) trip to S Africa and part of our itinerary (no tour - all planned and executed by ourselves) we visited the Zulu War Lands. Specifically Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. In preparation, I read Mike Snook's wonderful two books on each battle - dense and detailed considering the battles were just a few kilometers apart and lasted less than 24 hours. Isandlwana was a disaster for the British - routed and heavy losses; the Zulu's lost heavily too but they knew that when they fought the "red soldiers". Rorke's Drift was a British triumph when just over a hundred troops (none first line - engineers, logistics, and injured) repulsed many thousands of Zulus and inflicted thousands of casualties. More VC's were justly earned there than in any other battle.

This book is very different than the aforementioned. It is less than half the length of one of Snook's and its scope is the whole of the Zulu wars including its antecedents and the aftermath, other colonial wars in Africa, and a fairly extensive comparison between the British and Zulu warrior cultures.

A quick and not a heavy read.… (meer)