An Age of Hubris is the first comprehensive overview of the impact of missionary enterprise on the Xhosa chiefdoms of South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, chronicling a world punctuated by war and millenarian eruptions, and the steady encroachment of settler land hunger and colonial hegemony. With it, Timothy Keegan contributes new approaches to Xhosa history and, most important, a new dimension to the much-trodden but still vital topic of the impact-cultural, social, and political-of missionary activity among African peoples. The most significant historical works on the Xhosa have either become dated, foreground imperial-colonial history, or remain heavily theoretical in nature. In contrast, Keegan draws fruitfully on the rich Africanist comparative and anthropological literature now available, as well as extant primary sources, to foreground the Xhosa themselves in this crucial work. In so doing, he highlights the ways in which Africans utilized new ideas, resources, and practices to make sense of, react to, and resist the forces of colonial dispossession confronting them, emphasizing missionary frustration and African agency.
Timothy Keegan is the author of Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order (Virginia).
Introduction 1. The Meanings of Conversion 2. The Xhosa and their History 3. Colonial Contacts, Colonial Influences 4. The Missionaries and the Chiefs 5. Translations and Conversations 6. The Pull of the Mission 7. Moralizing Africa 8. Aftermaths and Conclusions
"Colonialism, Christianity and the Xhosa is an accessibly written and compelling synthesis that makes important contributions to several bodies of scholarship that have preoccupied generations of scholars interested in South African history as well as the intersections of empire and Christian evangelism." - Fiona Vernal, University of Connecticut, author of The Farmerfield Mission: A Christian Community in South Africa, 1838-2008 "Timothy Keegan's book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamic interactions between the Xhosa chiefdoms and the European colonial and missionary enterprise during the first half of the nineteenth century. It explores more fully the Xhosa side of this complex history-how they encountered, rejected, or inculturated Christianity in the rapidly changing world created by European colonial and capitalist expansion. Minutely researched and written in highly accessible prose, the book is a welcome addition to the historiography of South Africa's coastal belt and should be read eagerly by specialists and non-specialists alike." - Jochen S. Arndt, Virginia Military Institute, author of Divided by the Word: Colonial Encounters and the Remaking of Zulu and Xhosa Identities
