African Political Systems Revisited: Changing Perspectives on Statehood and Power

Reexamining a classical work of social anthropology, African Political Systems (1940), edited by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, this book looks at the colonial and academic context from which the work arose, as well as its reception and its subject matter, and looks at how the work can help with analysis of current politics in Africa. This book critically reflects upon the history of anthropology. It also contributes to a political anthropology which is aware of its antecedents, self-reflexive as a discipline, conscious of pitfalls and biases, and able to locate itself in its academic, social and political environment.

Aleksandar Bošković is Senior Research Scientist at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade. His books include William Robertson Smith (Berghahn Books, 2021), Mesoamerican Religions and Archaeology (Archaeopress, 2017) and Other People’s Anthropologies (Berghahn Books, 2008, editor).

Günther Schlee is one of the Founding Directors of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. Prior to this appointment he was until 1999 Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bielefeld. His main publications include Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya (Manchester University Press, 1989) and How Enemies Are Made: Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflict (Berghahn Books, 2008).