Articles · Vol. 4 No. 2 (2008): Africa Review of Books, Volume 4, n° 2, 2008 · Pages 7-9

Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey

  • Anselme Guezo
    Anselme Guezo assistant professor of African History at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Bénin)
    ANSELME GUEZO is assistant professor of African History at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Bénin). He obtained a Master’s degree in History in 1979 (Benin), and a Ph.D at the University of Birmingham in 1989. He taught for about a decade at the University of Cape...
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Abstract

Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey by Edna G. Bay. University of Virginia Press, 1998, 350pp. ISBN 0-8139-1791-3 – ISBN 0-
8139-1792-1

Wives of the Leopard is probably the last book published on Danxome, although it was published by the Virginia University Press as far back as 1998.² Given the rapid pace of review of fresh ideas in the academic world, writing about this subject some ten years after publication might look anachronistic.
However, I presume that, for most of us, this book remains very current for two critical reasons: firstly, while it may constitute old stuff for the Anglophone academia, their francophone colleagues may yet not be very conversant with it. Secondly, for us Beninese, this book raises such vital questions that transcend time and space...

Keywords

Wives Gender Danxome

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Author Biography

  • Anselme Guezo, assistant professor of African History at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Bénin)

    ANSELME GUEZO is assistant professor of African History at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Bénin). He obtained a Master’s degree in History in 1979 (Benin), and a Ph.D at the University of Birmingham in 1989. He taught for about a decade at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana before he returned to his country. He has attended many conferences and workshops on the subject of Atlantic slave trade which is his area of specialisation

References

  1. G. Edna Bay, Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey, Charlottesville & London: University of Virginia Press, 1998.
  2. Suzanne Preston Blier, ‘The Path of the Leopard : Motherhood and Majesty in Early Danxome’, Journal of African History, 36, no.3 (1995), 391-417; Hélène d’Almeida

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