Description
Book SynopsisAfrica and Africans south of the Sahara in the 1500 years or so before the colonial period began.The aim of this book is to present what is now known and what seems reasonable to believe about some leading aspects and achievements of African life and civilization during the pre-colonial period, and thus to contribute to an understanding of Africa today. North America: Times/Random House
Trade ReviewBasil Davidson is the most effective popularizer of African history and archaeology outside Africa and certainly the best trusted in Africa itself. -- Roland Oliver * THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS *
Davidson is the often-overlooked fourth man in the group that includes his contemporaries and fellow historians, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson (a close friend of Davidson for many years). These men's committed, left-wing approach to writing history opened up the stuffy, chauvinist world of British professional historians and reached a popular audience far beyond academia. But whereas the others wrote about the British or European past, Davidson studied Africa and put his political energies into the struggle for Third World liberation. -- Michael Bygrave * THE GUARDIAN *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Rediscovery of Africa - The Peopling of Ancient Africa - The Mystery of Meroe - Kingdoms of Old Sudan - Between the Niger & the Congo - To the Southward - Traders of the Indian Ocean - Fair Cities of Stone - After Axum - The Builders of the South - The Reality Behind the Ruins - Decline & Fall - History Begins Anew
