The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800

By Christopher Ehret

Book Overview

With his focus on precolonial Africa, Christopher Ehret provides in The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 a remarkably complete and original overview of African history during the long periods sparsely covered in most other general histories of the continent. He examines African inventions and civilizations from 16,000 BCE to 1800 CE from the northern tip of Tunisia to the Cape of Good Hope in the south.Logically organized by topic and era, Ehret's heavily illustrated and easily accessible text reveals the diversity of African history. It explores the wide range of social and cultural as well as technological and economic change in Africa, and it depicts African agricultural, social, political, cultural, technological, and economic history in relation to developments in the rest of the world. Designed to address the glaring lack of texts concentrating on Africa before 1800, this book can be fruitfully combined with histories of Africa since 1800 to build a full and well-rounded understanding of the roles of Africa's peoples in human history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813920841
• ISBN13: 9780813920849
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A great overview of African History

This is a great easy to understand overview of African History in that it is decently comprehensive, and doesn't bog the reader down in a million names and dates. The best feature of this book is its focus on Africa, for it's own sake, instead of in relation to others. It also talks more about what the people were doing than kings and other heads of states, and how people interacted together, in such forms as trade, cultural difussion, and yes, wars. While dry in parts, as it is in fact a textbook, it makes African history accessible to one who hasn't gotten enough of it. I recommend it highly.