The African experience : [major themes in African history from earliest times to the present]

300 Pages·1992·8.43 MB·English

by  Oliver

This authoritative work covers the entire span
of human history across the African continent
from the earliest emergence of hominids in
eastern and southern Africa to the repeal of the
Population Registration Act of 1950 and the lift­
ing of trade sanctions in 1991. Drawing on
forty years of teaching and research, Professor
Oliver arranges the book thematically, begin­
ning with the human colonisation of the differ­
ent regions of Africa, the origins of food pro­
duction and the formation and diffusion of
African languages. The achievements of
ancient Egypt are placed in context with the
developments on the rest of the continent, and
a wide-ranging discussion of the spread of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam gives the reader
a valuable insight into an important facet of
African culture.
Later chapters discuss the nature of slavery
in Africa together with the external slave trade
and the impact of the caravan trade in precolo­
nial times. This leads to a perceptive analysis of
the strengths and weaknesses of African politi­
cal systems and why, from the early nineteenth
century onward, these systems were unable to
withstand the mounting political pressure from
abroad and the ensuing colonisation. Professor
Oliver presents the colonial partition of Africa
as a process of rapid amalgamation of small
units through which considerable modernisa­
tion was achieved at the expense of the indige­
nous structures and through the exploitation of
the African peoples.
In the concluding chapters of this remark­
able survey of African history, Professor Oliver
guides us through the economic, political and
social developments that gave rise to the mod­
ern African nation-states.
With 22 Maps and Figures; Notes; Index
0292N
The African Experience
ROLAND OLIVER
The African Experience
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An Imprint of HarperCollinsPw^/w^ers
This book was previously published in 1991 by Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, Ltd. It is here reprinted by arrangement with Weidenfeld
& Nicolson Ltd.
the African experience. Copyright © 1991 by Roland Oliver.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No
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First Icon edition published 1992.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 91 ~bl9b°
ISBN O-06-43585O-X
92 93 94 95 96 HC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
For Suzanne

CONTENTS
List of Maps and Figures ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgement xii
i Eden I
2 Eden Outgrown 16
3 The Fruits of the Earth 27
4 The Bricks of Babel 38
5 The Flesh-pots of Egypt 51
6 The Men of Iron 64
7 Peoples of the Book 77
8 Cities of the Plain 9«
9 Pastures Green 102
io Masters and Slaves 116
11 The Swelling Caravans 130
12 Pomp and Power >45
13 Strangers at the Gates >59
14 The Drawing of the Map >74
15 The New Taskmasters 187
16 The Things of God 201
17 The Fullness of Time 213
18 The Birth of Nations 227
19 The Slippery Slope 241
20 The Past and the Present 252
Notes 265
Index 276
Vil

MAPS AND FIGURES
The cradle of humanity: the high grasslands of eastern and central
Africa 2
Plan of an occupation surface exposed by excavation at Bed i,
Olduvai Gorge 7
Early tools 11
Eden outgrown: the colonization of northern, western and western
central Africa 17
The origins of African food production 30
Language families of Africa: (i) c. 8,000- 3,000 bc and
(ii) ¢. 3,000-0 bc 39
Guthrie’s Zones and test languages for Bantu and (ii) Group
average classification of the test languages, based on the
comparative distribution of general roots 47
Ancient Egypt 54
Nubia and Kush 60
The early Iron Age 68
Peoples and early towns of western Africa 94
Peoples and urban sites of eastern and southern Africa 106
Regions affected by the atlantic slave trade: sixteenth to
eighteenth centuries 124
Regions served by camel and donkey transport 134
Regions infested by the tsetse fly, where transport was limited
to canoe traffic and human porterage 139
Larger African states of late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries 149
The opening-up and destabilization of Africa, mid-nineteenth
century 162
The beginnings of partition, c. 1887 177
The map completed, c. 1902 183
Mechanical transport in early colonial Africa: rail and waterways 189
Colonial Africa between the two World Wars 214
The Africa of Nation States 233
IX