A Colonial Lexicon

“A Colonial Lexicon is a marvelous breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale historiographical room, by turns inventive, provocative, and exasperating.” - Timothy Burke , International Journal of African Historical Studies

“A Colonial Lexicon is a powerful study. Hunt takes risks. She employs novel methods and approaches. She challenges historical conventions and applies a great deal of historical imagination to her analysis. All of this makes for a fascinating, if at times unsettling, journey.” - Randall M. Packard , Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“[A]n important contribution to current debates in medical anthropology, . . . gendered approaches to colonialism, and semiotics. . . . Hunt does an admirable job. . . .” - Sangeetha Madhavan , American Ethnologist

“[I]nnovative, brilliant . . . . [A] smart, well-researched book full of remarkable insights into colonialism, missionaries, medicine, gender and the practice of social history. . . . Hunt has written an important book that will make significant contributions to the ways we research, write and understand social history in Africa and elsewhere.” - Dorothy L. Hodgson , Journal of Social History

“Hunt’s study is an important contribution to the historiography of medical practice, missionary activity, and gender in the Congo, three themes that she brings together quite effectively. . . . Her fascinating portrayal of the Belgian colonial welfare state, where births were not only medicalized but also ‘bureaucratized,’ thus becoming statistics that vindicated the pronatalist preoccupation, is well crafted and compelling. . . . [This is] a richly textured and groundbreaking study.” - Ch. Didier Gondola , American Historical Review

"[V]ivid. . . . The breadth and richness of this book make for a lengthy yet fascinating read; it is an important case study for scholars in the history of colonialism and medicine in Africa and medical anthropology, as well as those concerned with African studies and ethnography more generally. . . . [G]uided and motivated students will enjoy Hunt's wit, excellent descriptive writing, narrative reports, evocative images, and theoretical challenges." - Ellen Gruenbaum , ISIS

"I know of no other discussion of twentieth-century medical missions in African that captures their professional dilemmas and distinctive cultural ambience with such vivid colour and humanity." - Brian Stanley , Baptist Quarterly

“ ‘Birth’ is more than the begetting of children and Nancy Rose Hunt’s ‘colonial lexicon’ is much more than a history of medicalized childbearing in the formerly Belgian Congo in colonial and post-colonial times. . . . With erudition and wit Hunt challenges conventional models—be they feminist, obstetric, colonial, missionary, or health-bureaucratic—about what it means to medicalize childbearing.” - Barbara Duden, Universität Hannover

“A highly original study. This book links medical work with maternity work in the context of arguments about gender relations and about feminist perspectives on writing history.” - Gillian Feeley-Harnik, author of A Green Estate: Restoring Independence in Madagascar