THIS book, by J. F. Ade Ajayi (Professor of History, University of Ibadan) and Robert S. Smith (Lecturer in History, University of Ife), is published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.
Although this is not the main purpose of this very good book, "Yoruba Warfare in the 19th Century" explodes the myths and conceptions spread by imperialist apologists concerning pre-colonial Africa.
As the title suggests, the reader is given a factual and excellently documented analysis of the causes, courses and consequences of military conflict between the different Yoruba kingdoms. But it does more than this.
The Yoruba people number several millions. They are to be found not only in their homeland of Western Nigeria, but also throughout West Africa and as far afield as Brazil and Cuba, where their culture exerts a strong influence.
This culture has produced some of the world's masterpieces in sculpture, notably the bronzes and terracottas of Ife. Different kingdoms had sophisticated administrative machines, political, social and economic systems even if monarchical ones and feudalistic ones.
Although the basis of economic life was agriculture, commerce was extensive and far flung. Nor was the slave trade the all important trade, and cause of wars between rival kingdoms, as Victorian moralists pretended in their pratings about 'the white man's mission'.
Although sufficiently factual and well-documented to be an authoritative piece of work for any academic, the lucidity and vividness of its style prevents it from being in any sense a drab book, and it will be of interest to all those wishing to know more of Africa's past.