The Anatomy of Power: European Constructions of the African Body
by Alexander Butchart
Category: History

Using Foucault's thinking on the relationship between power and knowledge, the author of this extraordinary book analyzes the ways in which the body of "The African" has itself been analyzed in western thought from the Renaissance to the present. The book marshals an impressive array of documentary records--from the texts of Renaissance mythology and natural science in the Classificatory age to Bantu anatomy and "the African personality." As such it not only provides a critical edge to debates around colonialism and African identity, it is also an invaluable new reservoir of source materials for scholars with a passion for knowing the body politic and its anatomy of power.