"The Pygmies Were Our Compass": Bantu and Batwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900 C.E. (Social History of Africa Series)

Covering more than 2,000 years this important region's history, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to the knowledge of pre-colonial Africa. It is the first historical work to reconstruct a Batwa or "Pygmy" past, thereby questioning Western epistemologies that have long portrayed the Batwa as a quintessential people without history. Clearly written, jargon-free, immensely ambitious, provocative, and daring, this book will forever change the way Africanists approach their scholarship. Klieman issues a stinging reminder that the logic of race and social evolutionism prevalent in many scholarly and popular treatments of Africa is by no means dead. Her book stands as a powerful corrective to assumptions-even subconscious ones-about "backward" societies and smug beliefs about the criteria for defining what is considered civilized and what is not.