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African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (2001-04-30)
ISBN: 0521596904
EAN: 9780521596909
Dewy Decimal #: 967.01
Paperback: 356 pages
Edition: 2
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
This major new revised edition of African Civilizations reexamines the physical evidence for developing social complexity in tropical Africa over the past four thousand years and considers possible explanations of the developments that gave rise to it. Graham Connah focuses on urbanism and state formation in seven main areas of Africa: Nubia, Ethiopia, the West African savanna, the West African forest, the East African coast and islands, the Zimbabwe Plateau, and parts of Central Africa. Extensively illustrated and offering an extended bibliography, this book provides essential reading on the topic.
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Customer Reviews
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from what little archeaology
Rating  (3)
Date: 2006-12-26
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
The approach Connah takes with this text is that he is discussing Africa, excluding Egypt and the Maghreb which he considers not ever being a part of "black" Africa. It is here that he makes his first folly. Secondly he attempts to discuss tropical Africa primarily from archaeological evidence. This works well, since few historians focus on history in this way. The problem with this is that Africa's story is a million times more complex and dynamic than archaeological evidence has provided. Not because of some elusive romantic idea of Africa but from the simple fact, which Connah admits, that archaelogical/anthropological research in Africa is next to nothing in comparison to other places. The majority of such studies focus on pre-modern man's existence in Africa and not on modern man's civilization in Africa. For this reason alone such an approach to African history, as good as its intentions and scholarly methods may sound can be revealing in some senses, but extremely limiting.
I do recommend this text, for the simple fact that there is a fair amount of knowledge an Africanist can learn from some of the archaeological work discussed but I warn you that this should not be considered a well-rounded text for studying Africa's history.
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Retail Price: $36.99
Amazon.com's Price:$5.80
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