APROPOS OF PETER GRANT’S BLOG POST, YOU MIGHT FIND THIS BOOK USEFUL: The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879 (Touchstone Books) by Donald R. Morris.
There probably is some bias in there (and not on the side of white anything) though I don’t remember detecting it, when I did my deep dive into African history 17 years ago. What became very clear to me is that whenever civilized (in this case defined as post-tribal) humans collide with tribal humans, tribal humans lose. They use the techniques that work in between tribes, imagining that their adversaries are also a tribe:
They start off with unimaginable massacres and horrible evil in the belief that this will cause the adversaries to back off. Because this works, between tribes. But when you’re dealing with people who view human individuals as both important, and important regardless of tribe, the more atrocities they commit the more they aggravate the anger of the civilized people.
The civilized hold back, afraid of committing atrocities, and the tribal humans commit more atrocities, and act like victors, while doing truly horrific things.
And then at some point the post-tribal people lose it.
What comes after is usually horrific and causes college social studies majors to cry centuries later.
This dance has been performed over and over and over again, since Rome at least. Since we had a polity that transcended tribes. The end is always the same.
So, the neo-tribal barbarians of the left who are following the script to the letter might wish to hear and revise their tactics. They won’t, of course, but we should warn them, all the same. Since we’re the ones who are trying to avoid the horrors.