Synopses & Reviews
In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the AIDS epidemic, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, and their social, economic and political institutions have been designed to ensure their survival. In the context of medical progress and other twentieth-century innovations, however, the same institutions have bred the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen. The history of the continent is thus a single story binding living Africans to their earliest human ancestors. John Iliffe was Professor of African History at the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of St. John's College. He is the author of several books on Africa, including A modern history of Tanganyika and The African poor: A history, which was awarded the Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association of the United States. Both books were published by Cambridge University Press.
Review
"Reading this seminal work afresh has made me appreciate just what an extraordinary achievement it really is." -John Parker, Journal of African History
Synopsis
In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the AIDS epidemic, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, and their social, economic and political institutions have been designed to ensure their survival. In the context of medical progress and other twentieth-century innovations, however, the same institutions have bred the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen.
Synopsis
A vast and all-embracing history of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the aids epidemic.
Synopsis
This is a general history of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the AIDS epidemic, current to 2006. It combines a broad picture of Africa's history with more detailed analysis of recent developments in a manner that other accounts of the continent do not attempt.
About the Author
John Iliffe is Professor of African History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St. John's College. He is the author of several books on Africa, including A Modern History of Tanganyika and The African Poor: A History, which was awarded the Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association of the United States. Both books are published by Cambridge University Press.
Table of Contents
1. The frontiersmen of mankind; 2. The emergence of food-producing communities; 3. The impact of metals; 4. Christianity and Islam; 5. Colonising society in western Africa; 6. Colonising society in eastern and southern Africa; 7. The Atlantic slave trade; 8. Regional diversity in the nineteenth century; 9. Colonial invasion; 10. Colonial change, 1918-1950; 11. Independent Africa; 12. Industrialisation and race in South Africa; 13. In the time of AIDS.