Making Headway

The process of cultural transfer in Northern Nigeria was historically thought to have been dictated by European colonial domination. In fact, Western missionaries may not have been able to guide African Christians toward mastery of the secular world when they themselves lacked the worldliness to do so. In this penetrating study, Andrew E. Barnes argues that competition among colonizing forces impelled British colonial administrators and Christian missionaries alike to offer Africans those aspects of Western civilization Africans themselves specifically wanted: schools that provided greater access to Western intellectual skills. In Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in Colonial Northern Nigeria, Barnes demonstrates effectively that Europeans were successful in transferring to local peoples the cultural values they hoped to foster only because Africans and Europeans reached consensus about the nature and character of the Western civilization to be shared. Ultimately, this study asserts, Africans had greater control over the introduction of Western civilization to the region than traditionally thought. Andrew E. Barnes is associate professor of History at Arizona State University.