"Examines the Igbo social system and view of the world. Covers their contact with European culture and the warfare that raged within the Igbo borders."--Textbooks.com viewed Dec. 8, 2020.

Extrait de amazon.com : "Among Africanists and feminists, the Igbo-speaking women of southeastern Nigeria are well known for their history of anti-colonial activism which was most demonstrated in the 1929 War against British Colonialism. Perplexed by the magnitude of the Women's War, the colonial government commissioned anthropologists/ethnographers to study the Igbo political system and the place of women in Igbo society. The primary motive was to have a better understanding of the Igbo in order to avoid a repeat of the Women's War. This study will analyze the complexity and flexibility of gender relations in Igbo society with emphasis on such major cultural zones as the Anioma, the Ngwa, the Onitsha, the Nsukka, and the Aro."

This book celebrates and explores the sculpture and masks of the many diverse ethnic groups living in Southeastern Nigeria. The peoples of this region--the populous Igbo and a dozen nearby but smaller groups--are famous for their artistic creativity. This illuminating book focuses on the area's sculptural arts--mostly figures and masks--examining these mostly unpublished works through the dual lenses of invention and tradition, and with many early and recent contextual photographs. More than 150 examples, dating from the past two centuries, reveal both surprising similarities and differences in artwork by Igbo, Isoko, Urhobo, Ijo, Ogoni, Ibibio, Oron, Eket, Ejagham/Efut, Bokyi, Tiv, Idoma, and Igala peoples. Qualities such as the nature of realism, idealism, and abstraction, the nuances of surface and detail, and the inventiveness of facial and other features, as well as complex uses and meanings, are all addressed in this exciting fresh overview that adds considerably to our understanding of African art. AUTHOR: Herbert M Cole, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the recipient of a lifetime achievement Leadership Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. He is a consultant to collectors and major museums such as the Metropolitan in New York City, the deYoung in San Francisco, and the UCLA Fowler. ILLUSTRATIONS: 130 color illustrations

This book comes, first of all, as the answer to the yearning for more written literature on the identity of the Igbo people of the southeast of Nigeria. The early chapters deal with their geographical and historical identity. Then it holds a searchlight on the Igbo worldview: their sociocultural values and traditions, their religious conceptsthe nature and character of the supreme being; their family agnates, relationships, and the structure and elements of social control dynamics, which are unknown to the Western world. The showcase also discusses some very powerful elements and traditions that give the Igbo their peculiar identity: the kola nut tradition, Igbo name, and food culture. This book is also a road map of the Igbo experience in the context of Nigerian histopolitical developments from 1914 to 1976: the crises, the pogrom, and the Biafran phenomenon, and the Ikemba Saga. Other hallmarks of this book include the profile of great personages: Igbo greatest heroes past and present, the icons of Igbo identity on both national and international scenes. And finally, it concludes with the roll call: an amazing catalog of more than four thousand Igbo traditional names.

The 1960s in Africa was a period of significant political transformation which saw the end of European colonialism and the emergence of independent African states. Like other emerging nations in Africa, Nigeria entered the postcolonial period with a sense of optimism. As various Nigerian societies began to respond to the emerging political systems bequeathed by British colonialism, the ideology and culture of ethnic politics began to find resonance among the political elites from diverse ethnic groups. By the middle of the 1960s, Nigeria had begun to experience political crises that culminated in the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-1970) which pitched the rest of Nigeria against the Igbo of the Southeast. Against All Odds explores the experiences of the Igbo in postcolonial Nigeria. It evinces both the grim side of postcolonial politics in Nigeria, particularly the horrors of ethnic politics, civil war, and the Igbo example of perseverance and human potential to overcome dreadful conditions of such magnitude. The collection illuminates the tension emanating from the enduring colonial legacies and their influences on Nigerian peoples and public life. Against All Odds links socioeconomic, cultural, and political events in Nigeria since the 1960s and the peculiar circumstances faced by the Igbo ethnic group with the continuing attempts to forge a more perfect nation state in which every constituent group is treated with fairness and equity. This book will appeal to the wider academic community working on modern Nigeria. It will also be of value to those whose work involves the nature of the postcolonial state in Africa and the crisis of nation building in modern Africa.