ABSTRACT
This is not to pick on Keegan, whose point in drawing this map-that geographical and climatological factors prevent war from being waged everywhere-is well taken, and remains true even if its specific manifestation in Africa is clearly poorly researched. But the map does highlight the fact that Africa is largely ignored in world and comparative history, and also
that African military history is still in its infancy, with perhaps the exception of the history of South African wars such as the Zulu war of 1879 or the Anglo-Boer Wars (1881, 1897-1902), both well within Keegari’s field of vision.4 Furthermore, although one can easily remark that Africa is often left out or dealt with in a very unsophisticated manner in the literature of comparative history, military historians are often less inclined than their colleagues in other subspecialities to engage in an easy Eurocentrism. As any reader of popular military history magazines is readily aware, there is a willingness of such magazines and their readers to be quite receptive to articles on a wide range of regions, cultures and time periods. The idea that military history is universal, that war may be fought according to set laws which can be illustrated and discovered in many times and places, and the respect that some non-Western armies are accorded for their courage, tenacity, and sometimes even victory over Western armies (as in Vietnam) all contribute to this willingness of the discipline to see beyond the history and culture of Europe and its extensions. But this willingness has not yet reached to Africa in any systematic way.
