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Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria
Firearms, Culture, and Public Order
Published by: Indiana University Press
336 Pages, 12 b&w illus., 4 tables
- eBook
- 9780253031624
- Published: January 2018
$9.99
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Guns are an enduring symbol of imperialism, whether they are used to impose social order, create ceremonial spectacle, incite panic, or to inspire confidence. In Guns and Society, Saheed Aderinto considers the social, political, and economic history of these weapons in colonial Nigeria. As he transcends traditional notions of warfare and militarization, Aderinto reveals surprising insights into how colonialism changed access to firearms after the 19th century. In doing so, he explores the unusual ways in which guns were used in response to changes in the Nigerian cultural landscape. More Nigerians used firearms for pastime and professional hunting in the colonial period than at any other time. The boom and smoke of gunfire even became necessary elements in ceremonies and political events. Aderinto argues that firearms in the Nigerian context are not simply commodities but are also objects of material culture. Considering guns in this larger context provides a clearer understanding of the ways in which they transformed a colonized society.
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Firearms in Twentieth-Century Colonial Africa
1. "This Destructive Implement of European Ingenuity": Firearms, the Atlantic World, and Technology Transfer in Precolonial Nigeria
2. All Firearms Are Not Made Equal: Colonialism, Social Class, and the Emergence of a Nigerian Gun Society
3. "A Dane Gun Is Useless without Gunpowder": The Political Economy of Nigeria's Most Popular Explosive
4. "All Europeans in This Country Should Be Able to Fire a Rifle": Race, Leisure Shooting, and the Lethal Symbol of Imperial Domination
5: "Bread and Bullet": Guns, Imperial Atrocity, and Public Disorder
6: A Fearful Weapon: Violent Crime and Gun Accidents in Everyday Nigeria
7: "You Are to Be Robbed of Your Guns": Firearms Regulation and the Politics of Rights and Privilege
Epilogue: Guns and the Crisis of Development in Postcolonial Nigeria
Bibliography
Index
Saheed Aderinto is Associate Professor of History at Western Carolina University and the author of When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1958.
Aderinto has written a very persuasive book: not only did the omnipresence of weapons influence Nigerian colonial culture but it also created a gun society. This convincing argument reminds us that American political debates on firearm regulation and policing deserve to be historicized.
~Social History
Aderinto has written a solid history. . . . the book is clearly written and contextualized while addressing sophisticated ideas and an array of specific examples.
~African Studies Quarterly
Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria remains an important book and a welcome addition to the scholarship on firearms in Africa. Engagingly written and underpinned by meticulous research, it serves as a well-documented demonstration of the benefits that accrue from studying processes of technology transfer from a socio-cultural perspective and of the inventiveness with which, throughout their history, Africans have appropriated externally-introduced commodities for their own purposes.
~Journal of African History
Aderinto's book makes an important contribution to the history of firearms in the twentieth century. . . . the meticulous study of the way in which guns gradually permeated everyday life is exemplary, pointing far beyond the Nigerian case.
~H-Soz-Kult
By weaving the story of firearms into the social and political fabric of colonial Nigerian history, this study overturns much of the conventional understanding of when and how firearms came to occupy a central place in African history. The readership for this book extends beyond the confines of the history of firearms. Those interested in British colonialism generally and colonialism in West Africa specifically will find much to chew on in this imaginative treatment of the subject.
~The American Historical Review
His [Aderinto] attention to archival detail is consistent and rigorous...There is hardly a current debate in the historiography of colonial rule in Nigeria to which Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria does not speak to...Aderinto's thoughtful analysis of what constitutes a 'gun society' and how such a thing is born speaks to political questions of our time—ones which go past the period of colonial rule and beyond the geographical confines of Nigeria
~Journal of West African History
[A] solidly researched and well-presented study on a most interesting topic. The author is to be commended for this welcome contribution to African historical scholarship.
~International Journal of African Historical Studies
The rich narratives within Saheed Aderinto's Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order immerse the reader into an in-depth account of the introduction and proliferation of guns in Nigerian society during the twentieth century. Weaving together oral history, newspaper reports, and archival data, Aderinto provides several sketches of daily life in Nigeria seen through the lens of gun use and gun ownership in the development of a gun society. ..Overall, this is a welcome addition to the fields of colonial history, African history, studies of political economy and material culture, and what has come to be known as "new military" history.
~H-Africa
In this innovative book, Saheed Aderinto analyzes the diffusion and use of firearms during colonization in Nigeria...In Chapter 5, arguably the best of the book, Aderinto shows how the policies of the colonizer have, in fact, contributed to weakening the coercive apparatus of the Nigerian state.
~Cahiers d'Études Africaines
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