A01=Michael Brett
Academic Discipline
Africa
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Age Group_Uncategorized
Archaeological
Author_Michael Brett
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=GTB
Category=GTM
Category=HBJH
Category=NHH
Contemporary
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Ethnographic
Evolution
History
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
Scriptural
Society
softlaunch
Written
Product details
- ISBN 9781847010636
- Weight: 786g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 17 Jan 2013
- Publisher: James Currey
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Explores how the conception of Africa and its history has changed over time and narrates the story of this vast continent over the past 10,000 years.
Africa is a huge continent, as large as the more habitable areas of Europe and Asia put together. It has a history immensely long, yet the study of that history as an academic discipline in its own right is little more than fiftyyears old. Since then the subject has grown enormously, but the question of what this history is and how it has been approached still needs to be asked, not least to answer the question of why should we study it.
This book takes as its subject the last 10,000 years of African history, and traces the way in which human society on the continent has evolved from communities of hunters and gatherers to the complex populations of today. Approaching that history through its various dimensions: archaeological, ethnographic, written, scriptural, European and contemporary, it looks at how the history of such a vast region over such a length of time has been conceived and presented, and how it is to be investigated. The problem itself is historical, and an integral part of the history with which it is concerned, beginning with the changing awareness over the centuries of what Africa might be. MichaelBrett thus traces the history of Africa not only on the ground, but also in the mind, in order to make his own historical contribution to the debate.
Michael Brett is Emeritus Reader in the History of North Africa at SOAS.
