Out of Our Minds - Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa

Informationen zum Autor Johannes Fabian is Professor and Chair of Cultural Anthropology and Non-Western Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (California! 1996) and Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (1983)! among other works. Klappentext "This subtle and original book is an anthropology of anthropologists! an exploration of explorers. We have for much too long looked at the records of the late 19th-century European travelers to Central Africa mainly as source material--sometimes reliable! sometimes not--about Africa. Fabian holds these visitors' accounts up to a mirror and looks at what they show about Europe's own assumptions! prejudices! and dreams."-Adam Hochschild! author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed! Terror! and Heroism in Colonial Africa "This remarkable book explodes all the old myths about European explorers in Africa while at the same time advancing a subtle and far-reaching critique of conventional ideas of scientific rationality. Fabian's insightful analysis of the literature of exploration provides the grounds for a provocative and very contemporary argument about colonial reason and the conditions of ethnographic understanding."-James Ferguson! author of Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt Zusammenfassung Explorers and ethnographers in Africa during the period of colonial expansion are usually assumed to have been guided by rational aims such as the desire for scientific knowledge, fame, or financial gain. This book shows explorers were far from rational - often meeting their hosts in states influenced by opiates, alcohol, sex, fever, and fatigue.

Product details

• Authors: Johanne Fabian, Johannes Fabian, Fabian Johannes, Universitat Frankfurt Am Main
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.06.2000
• EAN: 9780520221239
• ISBN: 978-0-520-22123-9
• No. of pages: 335
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Ethnology; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, TRAVEL / Africa / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, HISTORY / Africa / General, Africa, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Travel & holiday, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, Regional Studies, Social and cultural anthropology, Regional / International studies, African History, Travel and holiday, C 1900 - C 1914, c 1900 to c 1909