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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Kingdom of Kongo, ca.1390-1678. The Development of an African Social Formation
Author:Thornton, John K.ISNI
Year:1982
Periodical:Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:22
Issue:87-88
Pages:325-342
Language:English
Geographic term:Central Africa
Subjects:modes of production
history
Kongo polity
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
History and Exploration
External link:https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1982.3380
Abstract:Etienne Balibar has suggested that the continuity of history can be replaced by a discontinuity, a succession of momentarily invariant states of the structure which modify themselves by sudden change'. These states are modes of production, and the history of society is reducible to a discontinuous succession of modes of production'. The history of individual social formations should thus be reducible to that of the modes of production dominant at any given time. Since this method claims universality, the evolution of one central African social formation, that of the kingdom of Kongo, can be examined in this way, as is shown in this article. The fact that the Kongo kingdom's history is fairly accessible through contemporary documentation provides an opportunity to combine the careful analysis of source material with the theoretical concepts elaborated by writers such as Balibar. Attempted is to show that the classic period of Kongo's history (ca. 1390-1678) was one in which the Kongo social formation was dominated by a single mode of production (although others played a significant role in the Kingdom's structure), whose establishment and dissolution defined the beginning and ending of the period Bibliogr., notes.
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