Description
Book SynopsisThe Modern Sovereign, a notion indebted both to Hobbes's Leviathan and Marx's conception of capital, refers to the power that governed the African multitudes from the earliest colonial days to the post-colonial era. It is an internalized power, responsible for the multiform violence exerted on bodies and imaginations. Joseph Tonda contends that in Central Africaand particularly in Gabon and the Congothe body is at the heart of political, religious, sexual, economic, and ritual power. This, he argues, is confirmed by the strong link between corporeal and political matters, and by the ostentatious display of bodies in African life. The body of power asserts itself as both matter and spirit, and it incorporates the seductive force of money, commodities, sex, and knowledge. Tonda's incisive analysis reveals how this sovereign power is a social relation, historically constituted by the violence of the African cultural Imaginary and the realities of State, Market, and Church. It is to be und
Trade Review“Tonda offers a fascinating insight into ‘the imaginary power’ and ‘power of the imagination’ in Central Africa. This analysis highlights the essential place occupied by the body and the structuring role of violence and fetishism at once religious, political, economic and sexual." * L'Homme *
