Review Essays: Colonialism and the Possibilities of Historical Anthropology

The publication of Jean and John Comaroff's monumental two-volume study of colonialism and religion in South Africa, Of Revelation and Revolution, was a signal event in historical anthropology during the 1990s. Pathbreaking in substance as well as method, the books analyze the colonial encounter in South Africa and explain its contemporary consequences. The two anthropologists issued a challenge to both anthropologists and historians to rethink their understanding of the construction of modernity. This tripartite review takes up their challenge. Three scholars with very different perspectives assess the Comaroffs' achievement and suggest its implications for our understanding of the past and the present and the relationship between the two. Elizabeth Elbourne, a historian of South Africa, locates the two volumes within the discipline of history and particularly the history of South Africa. Sally Engle Merry, a legal anthropologist who has written about dispute settlement in a variety of cultural contexts, analyzes the importance of the Comaroffs' work for the intersection of history and anthropology, particularly for the theories of culture. And Greg Dening, a cultural critic who studies Oceania, contends that the books' significance lies in their promotion of a new genre of historical analysis he labels "neomodernism." Together, the three essays help us understand why these critical works of scholarship and imagination have an importance far beyond their immediate subject matter.

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