Bandits, rebels and criminals: African history and Western criminology. This article reviews the different themes mentioned in two recent books that deal with crime in Africa. The first, "Banditry, Rebellion and Social Protest in Africa", represents a collection of seventeen historical studies collected by Donald Crummey on crime, banditry, protest and rebellion in colonial Africa. The second, "Crime, Justice and Culture in Black Africa", constitutes a criminological study of crime and justice in contemporary African societies. The review begins with a brief summary of how crime was given political significance in the various 'news' criminalities that have developed in the West over the past twenty years. These themes appear in similar forms in African history: the question of discovering the political significance of 'ordinary' crime; the categorization of the 'social bandit' as originally suggested by Hobsbawm; the relationship between subjective motivation and genuine legitimation. All these themes are present in the collection of Crummey. Brillon's book presents an anthropological account of conventional crime in Africa. It is much less a political writing about the meaning of crime than an explanation of the socially constructed nature of official crime statistics. These themes appear in similar forms in African history: the question of discovering the political significance of 'ordinary' crime; the categorization of the 'social bandit' as originally suggested by Hobsbawm; the relationship between subjective motivation and genuine legitimation. All these themes are present in the collection of Crummey. Brillon's book presents an anthropological account of conventional crime in Africa. It is much less a political writing about the meaning of crime than an explanation of the socially constructed nature of official crime statistics. These themes appear in similar forms in African history: the question of discovering the political significance of 'ordinary' crime; the categorization of the 'social bandit' as originally suggested by Hobsbawm; the relationship between subjective motivation and genuine legitimation. All these themes are present in the collection of Crummey. Brillon's book presents an anthropological account of conventional crime in Africa. It is much less a political writing about the meaning of crime than an explanation of the socially constructed nature of official crime statistics. as originally suggested by Hobsbawm; the relationship between subjective motivation and genuine legitimation. All these themes are present in the collection of Crummey. Brillon's book presents an anthropological account of
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