Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City

by Patricia W. Romero

This book depicts the history of Lamu, once an important East African port city, now known as an unspoiled tourist destination and scenic location for Hollywood movies.

For centuries, communities from India, Yemen, and Oman intermingled with coastal and central African groups. This unique situation provides the author with a vantage point to observe non-European multicultural interaction. Oral traditions are central to this study...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558761071
• ISBN13: 9781558761070
• Release Date: March 2021
• Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A pair of reviews for Lamu

"With this sensible book, Romero has prepared a careful study of modern Lamu that dissects fact from fantasy. The author provides new insights into the impact of slavery and the slave trade on the upper East African coast, on the introduction of British colonial rule and the British rivalries with German and French merchants and their diplomatic supporters, on health issues, on agricultural practices, and on religious and other ceremonial practices. Her discussion of the transition from Arab to Swahili to Anglo-Swahili to African Arab culture is important, and is a reflection of Lamu's crossroads position commercially and culturally. Romero's treatment of homosexuality and related sexual activities is, given Lamu's notoriety, rather abbreviated. This book is an example of microhistory, well practiced, and in no antiquarian mode." -Choice "provides a wealth of precious information...offers the reader documentary sources" --Journal of Islamic Studies 10, no. 2 (1999)