Faith in Empire
Subtitle: Religion, Politics, and Colonial Rule in French Senegal, 1880-1940
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780804783804
Subjects: Catholic church, africa; Catholic church, history; Religion and state; Religion and politics; Church and state, africa; France, colonies, africa; France, politics and government, 1870-1940
Description: Faith in Empire is an innovative exploration of French colonial rule in West Africa, conducted through the prism of religion and religious policy. Elizabeth Foster examines the relationships among French Catholic missionaries, colonial administrators, and Muslim, animist, and Christian Africans in colonial Senegal between 1880 and 1940. In doing so she illuminates the nature of the relationship between the French Third Republic and its colonies, reveals competing French visions of how to approach Africans, and demonstrates how disparate groups of French and African actors, many of whom were unconnected with the colonial state, shaped French colonial rule. Among other topics, the book provides historical perspective on current French controversies over the place of Islam in the Fifth Republic by exploring how Third Republic officials wrestled with whether to apply the legal separation of church and state to West African Muslims. -- Book cover.