Dark Trophies

Download or read book Dark Trophies written by Simon Harrison and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-06-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads or other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known of the prevalence of trophy-taking of this sort in the armed forces of contemporary nation-states. This book is a history of this type of misconduct among military personnel over the past two centuries, exploring its close connections with colonialism, scientific collecting and concepts of race, and how it is a model for violent power relationships between groups.