War in Southern Africa

Abstract

The study of war really is not what it used to be. The twentieth century has altered our way of looking at wars and the military. Scholars became interested in how armed forces relate to economic affairs, culture or political decision-making, how intelligence affected actions, and the effects of wars on imagination and memory. Militarism, resistance to it, and peace studies spawned countless books. And what was once thought to be peripheral-budgetary battles, for example, or the role of women-became central. The four books under review here are about war in Africa. The first, a special issue of Cambridge Anthropology, is the product of a colloquium on contemporary warfare in Africa. The remaining books are devoted to southern Africa. Namibia is the subject of The Devils are among Us. In War and Society, editors Jacklyn Cock and Laurie Nathan collect twenty-four contributions about South Africa. Like Lions they Fought is also on South Africa, but Robert B. Edgerton takes a more historical line in examining the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Since the majority of the books are about it, it is only fair that southern Africa should be the centre of attention, with Cambridge Anthropology acting as an outside comparison. The Devils are among Us wants to tell the story of the struggle for independence in a way not biased by the 'mind of the South African military' (p. vi). Like Lions they Fought also wants to correct a bias, the pro-British account of Donald T. Morriss's The Washing of the Spears (1965). Edgerton uses anthropological material to re-examine the 'meaning of warfare for the different men who were involved' (p. x). Cock and Nathan's contributors invoke transitions of anti-militarism to address 'the role of the SADF (South African Defence Force) and the militarisation of South African society' (pp. xiii, xiv). These books are here assessed by the criteria of peace studies' moral