Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe is a fantastic piece of postcolonial literature, looking retrospectively at the horrors of colonialism and how it destroyed myriads of rich, native cultures, for example, the Igbo community in Nigeria, within the fictional clan of Umuofia. The Igbos have an intricate and beautiful culture, replete with rituals and traditions that are imbued with spirituality and meaning. Yet this is denounced by white missionaries who impose Western government, trade and Church.

In this episode, I revisit this book, one I had studied for my GCSE English Literature Exam. I look at this novel through an anthropological lens, given that the discipline emerged during colonialism. The cultural richness conveyed through Achebe's writing, reflects the common objective of modern anthropology of staying true to the people you are studying and covering the parts of their culture with respect and focus. Further, I look at how the ideas of 'civilisation' emerged from traditional anthropological work and how it is important to abandon ideas that all communities must reach the same destination of Western 'civilisation'.