Whigs and hunters: the path not taken

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Periodical article

Title:	Whigs and hunters: the path not taken
Author:	White, Luise
Year:	2017
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	58
Issue:	1
Pages:	51-59
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	historiography social history
About person:	Edward Palmer Thompson (1924-1993)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853716000669
Abstract:	E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters has had an enormous impact on African historiography in its articulation of the relationship between property and law and the subsequent criminalization of customary practices. Some of the other themes in this book - indistinct bands of law-breaking peasants, people and animals, notions of the wild, and the near impossibility of commonplace judicial murder in peacetime - have not been taken up. This article argues for a broader engagement with this book and to remind African historians that the many facets and eras of Thompson's scholarship should encourage a more flexible reading of his work. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]