Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom

by Jan Vansina

To understand the genocide and other dramatic events of Rwanda’s recent past, one must understand the history of the earlier realm. Jan Vansina provides a critique of the history recorded by early missionaries and court historians and provides a bottom-up view, drawing on hundreds of grassroots narratives. He describes the genesis of the Hutu and Tutsi identities, their growing social and political differences, their bitter feuds, revolts, and massacres, and the relevance of this dramatic history to the post-genocide Rwanda of today.

2001 French edition, Katharla Publishers

Genres: History, Rwanda, Africa, Anthropology, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Jan Vansina was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa.

Reviews

[AskHistorians]

An important book to read if you want to understand the development of race/ethnicity in Rwanda prior to the arrival of the europeans. This book has been banned by Kagame's regime- and Vansina (as well as a good deal of his students) has been banned from ever visiting the country. This book is accepted by most precolonial central African historians- but it is extremely controversial in Rwanda because it goes against the governments' accounts of a perfect racially harmonious past that was then corrupted by Europeans. The government narrative (and the narrative supported by many journalists who have written about the genocide) places all of the blame for the genocide on Europe introducing race as a concept. One should be wary of any account that completely removes all agency from Africans (or even one that takes away a majority). African history was changed by European colonization, but the participation of Africans in that history was necessary and significant to the trajectory that it took.

[No · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazingly detailed historical account of pre-colonial Rwanda. Yes, it is difficult to read at first - you should be familiar with both the controversy of the topic and Rwandan nomenclature to be able to go through it. If you are interested in socio-cultural aspects of Rwanda, however, you probably already are.
This is a critical study, made of hundreds of historical and anthropological sources. I recommend it to anybody who'd like to understand the topic thoroughly.

[Andrew Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

First rate work with unique and insightful information and perspectives
You have no choice, but to look to to this book if you want to know about pre-colonial occupation Rwanda in depth

This book is only for scholars and specialists, it will be impenetrable if you haven't read books on Rwanda, and difficult if you have read some.

[Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really difficult read, its easy to get bogged down in the detail, and there's loads of detail in this book.