"[Herbert] has constructed a model of power relationships structured upon gender and age, and derived from male transformative processes, and in so doing has written a notable, and most enjoyable, book." ―African History
"Herbert examines with great care and thoroughness the relationships between gender and power and the rationales that give them social form.... [Her] analytical ability is outstanding." ―Patrick McNaughton
"This book is a well-written and essential study of the place of belief in African material culture." ―International Journal of African Historical Studies 
Herbert relates the beliefs and practices associated with iron working in African cultures to other transformative activities―chiefly investiture, hunting, and pottery making―to propose a gender/age-based theory of power.

Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies (African Systems of Thought)

Herbert, Eugenia W.

Religion & Spirituality

Indiana University Press

"Herbert examines with great care and thoroughness the relationships between gender and power and the rationales that give them social form...Her analytical ability is outstanding." - Patrick McNaughton. Eugenia W. Herbert presents African ironworking as an encapsulation of fundamental beliefs about transformation. With metallurgy as a model, the author extends these beliefs to other transformative activities such as the investiture of chiefs, hunting, and pottery making to propose a theory of power constructed along the twin axes of gender and age. Part 1 examines ironworking in a range of African societies in order to identify the core elements of belief as they are demonstrated in actual practice. Part 2 extends this model to chiefly investiture and hunting, both male-dominated. Herbert argues that these activities reveal the same underlying notions of power based on control of male and female reproductivity. In contrast, pottery making, usually a women's activity, is shown to be much less ritualized and to confer much less power on its practitioners. Generously illustrated and accessibly written, this book will have wide appeal to readers interested in questions of technology, gender, and culture.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Indiana Univ. Pr

The classic history of copper working and use throughout Africa A finalist for the 1985 Herskovits Prize

Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture

Business & Money

University of Wisconsin Press

The classic history of copper mining and use throughout Africa

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

“At last, the story of Ben Franklin in human dimensions set against the dazzling backdrop of the Age of Enlightenment. This is great history, great biography and, above all, a wonderfully entertaining book.” ―David Schoenbrun This book has been written primarily from original sources, published and unpublished, and in particular from the surviving letters that passed between Franklin and his family and friends―only a fraction, alas, of the total written―and including a good many not likely to be printed anywhere else ( for even the monumental edition of the Franklin Papers at Yale has to be limited to letters by or to Franklin in person ). It is not intended as a general biography of Franklin: Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia W. Herbert have filled in the background of his life only to the extent that it seemed necessary to their theme, and they have tried to see his many activities first and foremost from the vantage point of his family. At the same time they have endeavored to keep the cast of characters down, excluding many worthy relatives, friends, and enemies, out of consideration for the non-specialist reader, preferring to offer a sample rather than a multitude.

The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family

Biographies & Memoirs

LOPEZ, Claude-Anne

Historical

W.W.Norton&Company

Winner of the 2012 J. B. Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies
Like their penchant for clubs, cricket, and hunting, the planting of English gardens by the British in India reflected an understandable need on the part of expatriates to replicate home as much as possible in an alien environment. In Flora's Empire, Eugenia W. Herbert argues that more than simple nostalgia or homesickness lay at the root of this "garden imperialism," however. Drawing on a wealth of period illustrations and personal accounts, many of them little known, she traces the significance of gardens in the long history of British relations with the subcontinent. To British eyes, she demonstrates, India was an untamed land that needed the visible stamp of civilization that gardens in their many guises could convey.
Colonial gardens changed over time, from the "garden houses" of eighteenth-century nabobs modeled on English country estates to the herbaceous borders, gravel walks, and well-trimmed lawns of Victorian civil servants. As the British extended their rule, they found that hill stations like Simla offered an ideal retreat from the unbearable heat of the plains and a place to coax English flowers into bloom. Furthermore, India was part of the global network of botanical exploration and collecting that gathered up the world's plants for transport to great imperial centers such as Kew. And it is through colonial gardens that one may track the evolution of imperial ideas of governance. Every Government House and Residency was carefully landscaped to reflect current ideals of an ordered society. At Independence in 1947 the British left behind a lasting legacy in their gardens, one still reflected in the design of parks and information technology campuses and in the horticultural practices of home gardeners who continue to send away to England for seeds.

Flora's Empire: British Gardens in India (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)

History

Asia

University of Pennsylvania Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herbert, Eugenia W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Herbert, Eugenia W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herbert, Eugenia W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies (African Systems of Thought)

Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies (African Systems of Thought)

Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture

Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture

The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family

Flora's Empire: British Gardens in India (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)