Antecedents to Modern Rwanda

Professor Vansina is the foremost authority on the history of Rwanda.

The author of the classic Oral Tradition as History bases his account on hundreds of grass-roots narratives. It shows the historical roots of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 through an investigation of Rwanda's Nyiginya Dynasty of the 18th and 19th centuries. It demystifies Rwanda's precolonial past and colonial historiography. It describes the genesis of the Hutu and Tutsi identities, their growing social and political differences, their bitter feuds,revolts and massacres.

North America: University of Wisconsin Press