Cross and Flag in Africa: The 'White Fathers' during the Colonial Scramble (1892–1914) (review)

Aylward Shorter is well known for his missiological and anthropological works on Africa. It is less well known that he is also a trained historian. This is a vigorous account of a crucial twenty-five-year period in the history of the Catholic mission society to which Shorter belongs. Until recently, the 'Missionaries of Africa' were better known throughout Africa and beyond as 'the White Fathers', on account of the colour of their distinctive Arab-style garb. The time-frame he covers is from the death in 1892 of their founder, Cardinal Lavigerie, up to the outbreak of the First World War. This is not a chronological account, however, for Shorter has deliberately chosen a thematic approach to his subject. He successfully avoids the dangers of repetition and dullness associated with this approach, and provides a fast-moving account which never fails to entertain even as it informs.

Although commissioned by his Society, Shorter's book is far from being a self-serving 'in-house' apology for the Missionaries of Africa. In no way does he whitewash the White Fathers. This is a properly critical account, which also serves to some extent as an evaluation of the Society's work during this period, accrediting both praise and blame in balanced proportion. This evaluative element means that besides being a historical study, Cross and Flag is also in many ways a work of missiology. Wearing his historian's cap with suitable aplomb, Shorter never fails to make the necessary effort to see the personalities and events he describes in the context of their own times, yet the missiological preoccupations of a later age are seldom far from the surface. While some readers may consider this a defect, others will find it an enhancement. This is not history of the dry-as-dust category but history with engagement, which questions our own times as well as laying bare the past.

If Shorter is able to cover such vast ground at such breathtaking speed in a work of less than 300 pages, this is no doubt because his selection of the facts and the personalities that he chooses to set before us is informed by his own, largely unstated, hypotheses and assumptions; yet, these are seldom obtrusive. Even when they do become noticeable, they seem consistently sound. His anthropological expertise and long experienceare factors which inevitably influence his historical judgement, almost invariably to illuminating effect.

The synthetic and thematic approach which Shorter uses so well has surely done future researchers an enormous favour. Hitherto scattered material has now been put at their disposal in an easily accessible form. Written in a zippy style that the general reader will appreciate, the workis nevertheless carefully referenced for the scholar and specialist. Researchers will derive from it numerous starting-points from which to launch further, more analytical studies, which will either confirm or modify the conclusions Shorter has reached. Meanwhile, his finely produced and highly readable account will remain the standard work on the topic for a long time to come.