Andrianampoinimerinandriantsimitoviaminandriampanjaka -- ah yes, the traditional spelling.

Enjoyed the review -- Gordon

I am Malagasy and I cannot tell you how glad I am to read your very balanced and informed review on our strong and demonized queen. Unfortunately Laidler's views are widespread even in Madagascar. So thank you for seeing through the propaganda.

Natalie,

I left my elbow on the keyboard to see what I would get and the qwerty board rendered nothing anywhere near as sensible as this man's name.

Whew!!

Seriously, this was a very good read - perhaps also an illustration of what it really takes to keep a fish alive in a sea full of sharks...

Thanks all, and particularly sipakv: nice to know that she is remembered well by at least some of her countrypeople. Someone really should write a proper biography of her ... maybe you?

Wow! This is awesome - thanks for the reading, and providing a future trail to follow:)

Ranavalona was a genocidal monster along the lines of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Hitler etc. Reliable historical sources prove this, so why do you attack the credibility of laidler?

Is your bias towards "Ma Dieu" born of your gender, Bennett?

Which reliable historical sources are you referring to Liberation? I freely admit I'm not an expert on the subject, knowing only what I read in this book, but the evidence it presented utterly failed to convince me. It may be there are other sources, so I'd be delighted if you could point me to them.

As for the standards that should be applied, I don't think you can use today's. She can only be judged by the standards of her own time, and I judged from this book that say the rate of execution of her subjects was probably around typical for that time.

Ranavalona's private secretary was one of several boys who received an English education on the express orders of King Radama. He kept a number of records written in english describing in rich detail the atrocities perpertrated by Ranavalona.

What more evidence is required to support Laidler's account of Ranavalona's reign?

But Liberation, that is from "the other side". Ranavalona was broadly anti-European and anti-Christian, on the side of the traditional religion, while her son was firmly in the grip of her opponents. (Indeed he at least half-heartedly supported a coup attempt against her.)

As we all know, slandering one's political/military opposition is a standard tactic and has been through the ages. Evidence means details of names, events cases, and evidence that these were innocent victims, not people plotting against her (as the European powers certainly were), in which case by the standards of the time she was perfectly entitled to execute them.

Historical judgement requires critical examination of the sources and their motivations, not just swallowing them wholesale.

What about the historical record left by Ida Pfeiffer for one?

Natalie Bennett said

"As we all know, slandering one's political/military opposition is a standard tactic and has been through the ages."

So do you believe that the holocaust did take place or is it a vast Zionist conspiracy to demonize the Nazis?

Your defence of Ranavalona seems to be solely based on the fact that Ranavalona belongs to the same gender as you. You provide no documentary evidence to support your viewpoint against Mr Laidler's. Instead you try to fit the evidence to your worldview and discard it if it does not fit your preconceived notions.

As for swallowing history wholesale, Mr. Laidler has atleast provided a number of sources and you instead of providing other sources have just decided to ignore them as the ravings of colonialists.

As for Ranavalona butchering her victims you airily excuse them by saying "standards of the time". So do you condone slavery by the same standard? Laws which restricted voting rights only to men?

You seem to forget that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" whether the one wielding the power is male or female.

The Nazi comparison is of course ridiculous, and betrays the weakness of your argument - there are multiple sources of information about the Nazi regime.

By contrast Pfeiffer is one source, clearly racist (as was of course also normal for the time), and other sources come from the people who were backing the alternative faction in Madagascar. Critical examination and judgement of such sources is obviously essential.

I agree with Venky, you seem to ignore the historical record and form your opinions based on gender.

The reviewer isn't ignoring the historical record, she's evaluating it. She is considering the sources by asking if they are racist or politically biased. She's also lamenting the fact an author who chose to write a book on Ranavalona didn't.

That's not because she's a woman, it's because she's educated. Anybody who can't perceive that should ask themselves some hard questions about their own gender biases, or their own level of education.

Thanks Mistress La Spliffe. Couldn't have put it better myself!

I just ordered the book and look forward to reading it. I have read all the atrocities committed by the first female queen of Madagascar though, as reported by the Malagasy authors, in my history books (I am malagasy:)), and as relayed from generation to generation, by my ancestors. Yes, queen Ranavalona killed, that's a fact that noone can deny. To try to understand her rationale and her actions though, one has to assess the environment she was in: she was facing danger and pressures from every angle. She was the first female to reign the kingdom and that in itself was a burden. In a male-dominated environment, she had to prove that she had the guts to take hard stand when necessary. In addition, the western world started to set their eye on the island. In fact, the French attacked the island's coasts in 1829, and yes, she wanted for her people to remain free. How else would a sovereign act, in those circumstances?

And Liberation...I think the "genocidal monster" qualification is, to say the least, unfair. After all, to send a message to anyone resisting Rome's power, the Roman general Cassus crucified and left the bodies of more than 6000 slaves to rot along the road to Rome, yet, noone has called him "a genocidal monster"...