Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho

The Anatomy of a Moral Crisis

Peter Sanders author Colin Murray author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Edinburgh University Press

Published:11th May '05

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho cover

Medicine murder involved the cutting of body parts from victims, usually while they were still alive, to be used for the preparation of medicines intended to enhance the power of the perpetrators. A 'very startling' increase in cases of medicine murder apparently took place in Basutoland (now Lesotho), in southern Africa, in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. It gave rise to a dramatic crisis of late colonial rule. Was this increase a real one? If so, why did it happen? How far does it explain the crisis? What other factors contributed? This book offers some comprehensive answers to these difficult, complex and controversial questions and a highly readable analysis of how the crisis arose and of how it fell away. The authors draw sensitively and critically on many different and often conflicting sources of evidence.

A stunning contribution to studies which seek to get under the skin of the relationship between violence and political power in Africa ! This book is destined to be one of the classics of African historical and anthropological studies. It will generate a lot of controversy. And it is above all a really great piece of scholarship. -- Richard Rathbone, formerly Professor of African History, School of Oriental and African Studies Controversial, a fascinating read ! this book will be widely read and debated, probably acrimoniously in some quarters, for many years. -- Jeff Guy, Professor of History, University of KwaZulu-Natal A stunning contribution to studies which seek to get under the skin of the relationship between violence and political power in Africa ! This book is destined to be one of the classics of African historical and anthropological studies. It will generate a lot of controversy. And it is above all a really great piece of scholarship. Controversial, a fascinating read ! this book will be widely read and debated, probably acrimoniously in some quarters, for many years.

ISBN: 9780748622849

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

494 pages