Portugal in Africa (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Portugal in Africa Philip Havik David Birmingham . 2004. Portugal in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press. 203 pp. $20.00 (paper) $90.00 (cloth). This collection of essays, papers, and reviews covers more than four decades of the author's research into the history of "Portuguese" Africa. It includes a particularly wide range of subjects and a chronology that runs from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. Birmingham's approach broadly centers on the political, economic, and cultural changes that affected peoples, above all in the Angola region. In a dense but flowing style he sketches the background of events and processes associated with armed conflict, trade, social change, migration, agriculture, religion, and fiction. The depth and detail one would expect from an experienced and erudite scholar are interspersed with questions and suggestions for further research. While identifying some lacunae in the historiography of the region, the author questions them and challenges scholars to fill the gaps. While thereby retaining some of its mystique and complexity, African history since contact gains clarity and focus in European and Atlantic contexts. This is particularly the case when comparisons are made between Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English interventions, or when the strategies of different local power and interest groups are compared with each other. It is unusual for Africanists to cover such an enormous range of subjects and epochs, and Birmingham should be commended for it. In fact, some texts deal with other regions, such as the Mina settlement on the Gold Coast, no doubt inspired by the author's studies and lecturing in Ghana, and Cecil Rhodes's adventures in the Zambezi basin. Also, incursions are made into the literary realm, with a fictional narrative interwoven with the beginnings of nationalist resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and a review of a novel written by an Angolan writer whose publications were banned by Portuguese censors. Only too often, historians limit themselves to certain areas, subjects, and periods, digging deeply into archives and occasionally coming up for air to publish their data. On the basis of decades of documentary and empirical experience, the author sketches wars, battles, coups, slave and crop trade, migration, religious missions, decolonization, and nationalist movements. Within the space of two hundred pages, he takes the reader from Portuguese voyages in the fifteenth century to civil war in the twentieth. [End Page 123] However, such impressive range and variety also has disadvantages. The book lacks cohesion and a clear thread. Just over half the texts, most of which have already been published, contain notes leaving the less well-informed reader with lots of unanswered questions. The lack of a concise introduction, a bibliography, and a glossary makes one wonder what the book's target group is. If meant as a college reader, the book would require thorough editing, a bibliography, source references, and notes; if aimed at a general public, it would require a general introduction, a glossary, and maps. It would have benefited from the introduction and notes by Arlindo Barbeitos for the Portuguese edition of the book (Birmingham 2003), which provide useful background information on events and contexts. The title itself is open to question, given that the collection is mainly concerned with the Angola region; in that respect, the texts on the Gold Coast and Mozambique could have been dispensed with to provide a frame of reference. Differences in the quality and purpose of texts also come to the fore in this collection. Certain essays are somewhat far-fetched, as when the writer attempts to establish a link between Roman and Portuguese colonization; others, for example on Iberian conquistadores and Cazengo coffee barons, are well researched and argued. The use of certain terms, such as colonial for periods and locations that were manifestly precolonial, albeit postcontact, raise doubts as to the analytical criteria applied. The idea of complicity or resistance, which texts frequently allude to could well do with some shades of gray. Some of the author's statements, certainly for those who are unfamiliar with his work or the region, give the impression of a less-than-comfortable relationship with oral history. It is therefore quite refreshing when the reader is given some...