Making Headway: the introduction of Western civilization in colonial Northern Nigeria; by Andrew Barnes. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2009. xii +330 pp. ISBN 9781580462990. £55.

Abstract

Making Headway: the introduction of Western civilization in colonial Northern Nigeria; by Andrew Barnes. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2009. xii +330 pp. ISBN 9781580462990. £55. This is a remarkably detailed study, deeply researched and highly informative, of what in retrospect can be interpreted as the cultural 'opening up' of the Northern Nigerian emirates from 1900 onwards by the two principal groups of European actors, the British colonial administrators and the European (and American) missionaries. For Barnes the administrative promotion of Western culture was rooted in an identifiably aristocratic past, while the missionaries, Protestant and Catholic were guided by their own concepts of evangelism. Yet by no means was this a joint program of cultural imposition. More often than not, the two groups operated in marked competition rather than in close co-operation in their single programme on how, using Barnes' subtitle, to introduce Western civilisation. Indeed, he argues that in the story of how Christianity came to the Northern emirates, the colonial government was motivated in its concept of Western civilisation by an entrenched and intransigent opposition to missionaries. Contrary to many interpretations of the colonial rule in Northern Nigeria, Barnes dismisses the belief that this virtual animosity was principally derived from a genuine empathy for Islam. So absorbed am I by the arguments (and authority) in this book that I have felt more like urging those interested in the initial cultural aims and the impact of the colonial administration and of the missionary presence just to go ahead and read the book rather than my attempting to summarise its scope and methodology in a short review. Let me just say that, however anxious researchers of the period and the theme may be to hurry on to the nitty-gritty core chapters like "Indirect Rule as a Form of Cultural Transfer" and "Christian Missions and the Evangelization of the North", in no way should they overlook the preliminary discussion of "Theoretical Concerns" and "Historiography" - the routinesque pages on historiography contain a firstclass analysis of the influential views of recent scholars like Robert Heussler, Ian Nicolson and Peter Tebenderana on their contrasting interpretations of the character and motives of British administrators in Northern Nigeria. Despite my enthusiasm for this book, with its insights into the working and the mind of colonial administrators and its wealth of new data on missionary attitudes and activities, and my admiration for the way Barnes has consulted lesser-known mission sources such as the SIM jounal Sudan Witness, the minutes of the serverai missionary conferences held in Jos in the 1920s and 1930s, and the unpublished Casaleggio manuscript in the World Mission administrative files, along with his valuably drawing attention to recent unpublished dissertations submitted both in Nigeria and beyond - despite all these merits, I am puzzled by some of the gaps in the recording of standard texts. …