“A counter-intuitive re-reading of classic anthropological texts from the colonial archive, Beyond Words proposes a brilliant solution to one of the  most pressing intellectual/political issues in African Studies today. Responding to trenchant critiques of anthropology’s complicity with colonialism and Eurocentric thought, Apter argues that these texts—of Dogon cosmological reflection, of Tswana praise poetry—be reread as critical reflection on power and authority, as vernacular criticism that was history-making rather than history-erasing and politics-averse.”

Charles Piot, Duke University

“Apter’s argument is both thoughtful and original. The juxtaposition of classic and contemporary anthropology is deft and refreshing, and the ethnographic analyses are original, rigorous, and subtle. What I most appreciate about Apter’s book is that it confronts anthropology’s entrenched ambivalence about its traditional topics head on by revisiting classic studies and finding the value within them. This is novel and bold.”

Deborah D. Kaspin, coeditor of Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa

"This is an important and inspiring book that takes on the challenge of clearing a new path for African studies while producing a freshly configured theory for coming to terms with the complexity of power, authority, and resistance in African society. . . . It provides a model for how to relate to and use the valuable if problematic work of all those early anthropologists relegated to the ’colonial library,’ and their continued importance to contemporary research. A kind of manifesto for postcolonial research in Africa, and a roadmap for how to reincorporate the canon of British social into contemporary critical theory, this book should be considered required reading for all contemporary Africanists."

Sasha Newell | Journal of African Historical Studies