Often we talk about books, what can be said about philosophers, wisdom, or enlightenment Recently a Nigeria female researcher, after the rainfall of her discovery in Human history and Existence in Racial apparatus wrote a book specifically for Edo people cultural beauty and splendor, This book critically examines the relationship between the Benin Kingdom and the Europeans during the period of early contact to the time when Benin was colonized by Britain in 1897. It analyzes how the systems introduced to Benin by the colonists redefined and shaped the political, economic, social, and cultural structures of Benin and its people. It also unpacks the intergenerational effects of colonization and gender stratification embedded in the educational system introduced to the Benin people by the European colonizers and explores how Western education shaped the trajectory of the author’s life.
This book’s author, Nekpen Obasogie, is an Indigene of the Benin Kingdom who is popularly known for promoting the Benin cultural heritage in Nigeria and the Diaspora. Her enthusiasm and love for the Benin culture have no bounds—sufficiently demonstrated in her television shows, webinars, and written works. Her enthusiastic inclinations are rooted in her childhood memories and upbringing in Benin City.
Great Benin: The Alcazar of Post-Colonial Culture and Its Relationship with the Europeans Since 1400 AD diligently depicts how the colonial system and Western education amplified gender exclusion, which shattered the author’s childhood dream. In this book, Nekpen Obasogie analyzes how the patriarchal moral code embedded in both the Benin Kingdom and the colonial system worked together to shape the lived experiences of her mother and grandmothers and how it affected her childhood experience in the 1980s in the Benin Kingdom.
The female author by the name Nekpen Obasogie and also the CEO of NeboTV proudly asserts that the Benin culture is one of the most important and richest of all cultures in Africa and the world at large. As a result of this richness and robustness in cultural and art activities, Nekpen Obasogie has decided to take the bold initiative of promoting and showcasing the rich, much-talked-about Benin cultural heritage to the rest of the world.
This book analyzed the political, social, and cultural arrangement of the Benin Kingdom before the advent of the Europeans in the land. Furthermore, it summarized the relationship between the Benin Kingdom and the Europeans, such as the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spanish, and the French. How this relationship helped a great deal to enhance development and civilization in the Benin Kingdom.
The book summarizes the British Punitive Expedition of 1897 in Benin.
She argues that the contact between Benin and the Europeans was a conglomeration of development and domination, as the relationship resulted in acculturation and colonialism.
The Benin Kingdom has always been at the apex of the history of the European and Africa relationship during early contact to the period when different countries were colonized by the Europeans.
Some of the themes in the book:
The paradox of race
Acculturation
Colonialism
Europeans’ treaty system in West Africa.
Proper knowledge of history will, no doubt, help to understand the past and the present, as well as define the future, she says
