Amazons of Black Sparta, 2nd Edition: The Women Warriors of Dahomey Contributor(s): Alpern, Stanley B. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0814707726 ISBN-13: 9780814707722 Publisher: New York University Press OUR PRICE: $28.50 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2011 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Military - General - History | Africa - West - Social Science | Women's Studies |
Dewey: 355.310 |
LCCN: 2010049597 |
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.5" W x 8.4" (0.84 lbs) 294 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - West Africa - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The only thoroughly documented Amazons in world history are the women warriors of Dahomey, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western African kingdom. Once dubbed a 'small black Sparta, ' residents of Dahomey shared with the Spartans an intense militarism and sense of collectivism. Moreover, the women of both kingdoms prided themselves on bodies hardened from childhood by rigorous physical exercise. But Spartan women kept in shape to breed male warriors, Dahomean Amazons to kill them. Originally palace guards, the Amazons had evolved by the 1760s into professional troops armed mainly with muskets, machetes and clubs. By the 1840s their numbers had grown to 6,000. The Amazons served under female officers and had their own bands, flags and insignia: they outdrilled, outshot and outfought men, became frontline troops and fought tenaciously and with great valor till the kingdom's defeat by France in 1892. |
Contributor Bio(s): Alpern, Stanley B.: - Stanley B. Alpern worked as a sub-editor for the New York Herald Tribune and then as a foreign service officer of the United States Information Agency for twenty-two years, two of which were spent in West Africa. He lives on the French Riviera. |