The Kingdom of Kongo (Oxford Studies in African Affairs)

The kingdom of Kongo possesses one of the best-developed historiographies of any pre-colonial African state, and Hilton’s contribution follows upon a tradition of social anthropological approaches dating back to the 1920s and more recently found in work by Balandier, Randles and Ekholm. However, Hilton is more specifically historical than these earlier writers in that she makes a serious attempt to trace development in the major political, religious and social institutions rather than presenting a timeless or only superficially historical account. She has also made much more systematic use of the huge volume of written contemporary documentation available on the kingdom, especially the unpublished archival and manuscript material. She has thus developed this approach to its fullest within the confines of the available information. 1. The Economic, Social, Religious, And Political Environment -- 2. The Kingdom Of Kongo -- 3. European Contact: The Kongo Kingdom, 1483-1568 -- 4. Centralization: 1568-1622 -- 5. Decentralization: 1600-1641 -- 6. New Opportunities: The Dutch Occupation Of Luanda, 1641-1648 -- 7. The Portuguese Restoration And The Destruction Of The Unitary Kongo Kingdon, 1648-1665 -- 8. The Later Seventeenth To The Early Twentieth Century. By Anne Hilton. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [294]-308.