This book, as Richard Reid explains at the outset, is not the history of the European “Scramble for Africa” that the publishers asked him to write. It is a story of the African scramble. In characteristically vigorous prose, Reid argues that it was political, economic and social change within Africa that shaped and made possible the partition of the continent in the late 19th century – indeed, that in some cases, these internal changes actively drove the process.
Reid – professor of African history at the University of Oxford – has made this argument before, but The African Revolution offers an extended, detailed exposition of the point. While the notional focus of the book is the “road” from the east African coast to the lakes of east-central Africa, the discussion ranges very much more widely than that. Reid draws on his remarkable grasp of political and social change in societies across the continent to evidence his argument.
His footnotes are a trove of information and insights. Readers may wish that the maps, grouped at the front of the book, were better spaced to help them follow an argument that moves back and forth in time and place, but the book is an erudite and informed work that powerfully conveys the sense of multiple societies in flux.
Along the way, Reid offers some memorable character sketches that bring to life the dilemmas and opportunities – and the tragedies – of the period. Mirambo, the political entrepreneur who built an ephemeral domain in what is now central Tanzania, appears here as a historian who saw a deep past of powerful kingdoms as a precedent for his own ambitions.
The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century by Richard Reid – An erudite and informed work
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Tewodros, Ethiopian emperor, similarly used history as a tool for imagining the future as he sought to remake the state. Neither achieved the lasting personal success they aimed for – but Reid’s argument is that their ambitions, and those of many others, had enduring consequences.
The suggestion that perhaps ‘instability is hardwired into Africa’s historical development’ may be at odds with the declared intention to challenge stereotypes
That, Reid argues, is because the partition of the late 19th century was not a dramatic break with all that had gone before. Here too he takes up a point that he has made with great energy in previous work: the partition of Africa should not be the point of origin through which we seek to explain every aspect of African politics and society since the early 20th century. To consign all that went before to the general category of “precolonial” history is, he argues, to ignore the continuing dynamism of African societies and to surrender to the most profound claim of European colonialism: that before it, there was only chaos.
In making that argument Reid, like many other historians of Africa, emphasises African “agency” – meaning that we should resist the temptation to see the population of Africa as collective victims, powerless in the face of external exploitation. The depiction of Mirambo and others makes that point. Yet that agency was evidently constrained: rapidly growing international commerce, and changes in military and transport technologies, were key to the changes Reid describes and were driven from outside the continent. The death of Tewodros – who shot himself with a pistol sent by Queen Victoria as a British expeditionary force stormed his final refuge – makes those constraints brutally clear.
Reid acknowledges that an insistence on “agency” might obscure fundamental global imbalances of power – and might be seen as a way of shifting on to Africans collective responsibility for profound abuses, from the slave trade to the brutal violence of conquest. He is scathing in his denunciations of colonial violence and rejects the idea that he is suggesting any such generalised African culpability – but this can be a tricky line to walk.
The challenge of doing so may be all the greater because of the emphasis throughout the book on violence as the main dynamic of politics. The “revolution” of the title took many forms – and confusingly, Reid also repeatedly uses other terms – reform, insurgency, insurrection, innovation – apparently as synonyms for revolution. Sometimes they are even combined: “reformist insurgency”, “revolutionary insurgency” and “insurgent revolution” are all mentioned. That itself might trouble some readers – are these all the same things? But perhaps more significant is the implication that this revolution – or rather, these revolutions – are all presented as profoundly military and very gendered.
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There are mentions of other kinds of change – economic, social and religious. But the argument always comes back to the same point. The innovations and entrepreneurship emphasised by this book are repeatedly described as creative, but actually they were all about organised violence perpetrated by men, whose ambitions pushed a politics of predation. There is little insight into other possibilities of political creativity in African societies during the long 19th century – what happened to ideas of justice, value or wellbeing in this period of rapid change?
This is a big book from a skilful writer: clever, full of ideas and insights and stimulating, as well as provocative. The opening reflections on the author’s own experience and motivations are drily witty and honest; the concluding discussion of the role of history is a fascinating essay in itself. Yet the insistence that “Africa’s long nineteenth century was defined by violence”, and the suggestion that perhaps “instability is hardwired into Africa’s historical development” may be at odds with the declared intention to challenge stereotypes of an African past mired in inchoate conflict.
Justin Willis is professor in history at Durham University
