Blood and Bronze

aw_product_id: 
31340443191
merchant_image_url: 
https://cdn.waterstones.com/bookjackets/large/9781/7873/9781787384569.jpg
merchant_category: 
Books
search_price: 
20.00
book_author_name: 
Paddy Docherty
book_type: 
Hardback
publisher: 
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
published_date: 
09/12/2021
isbn: 
9781787384569
Merchant Product Cat path: 
Books > History > Historical events & topics > Colonialism & imperialism
specifications: 
Paddy Docherty|Hardback|C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd|09/12/2021
Merchant Product Id: 
9781787384569
Book Description: 
An incisive history revealing Britain's conquest of the Kingdom of Benin and the plunder of its fabled Bronzes. The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum's most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once West Africa's most powerful, and today part of Nigeria. But despite the Bronzes' renown, little has been written about the brutal imperial violence with which they were plundered. Paddy Docherty's searing new history tells that story: the 1897 British invasion of Benin. Armed with shocking details discovered in the archives, Blood and Bronze sets this assault in its late Victorian context. As British power faced new commercial and strategic pressures elsewhere, it ruthlessly expanded in West Africa. Revealing both the extent of African resistance and previously concealed British outrages, this is a definitive account of the destruction of Benin. Laying bare the Empire's true motives and violent means, including the official coverup of grotesque sexual crimes, Docherty demolishes any moral argument for Britain retaining the Bronzes, making a passionate case for their immediate repatriation to Nigeria.

Graphic Design by Ishmael Annobil /  Web Development by Ruzanna Hovasapyan