W. Page – Encyclopedia of African History and Culture (5 Volumes)

Автор: W. Page
Название книги: Encyclopedia of African History and Culture (5 Volumes)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: История Азии и Африки
Страницы: 2100
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

An encyclopedia on African history with broad cultural and geographic coverage, this set covers African history from ancient times to the present. In five volumes – each devoted to a major period in the continent's development it spans African history, geography, art, cultures, peoples, personalities, and even wildlife

In three initial volumes, the first edition of this encyclopedia
covered African history and culture from earliest times
to 1850. This new edition adds two volumes to carry the
coverage to the present. Also, we have revised the original
three volumes to include a number of needed articles,
while consolidating some entries and updating others. One
particularly necessary revision involved including entries
for all of Africa’s present-day countries in each of the
three initial volumes. In addition to new country articles,
Volume I now includes a number of new geographical
entries. African languages, which had been spread among
the three volumes, are now consolidated in this volume,
as well. The present Volume I thus contains entries that are
not necessarily tied to any specific chronological period as
well as articles that deal with African history and culture
prior to 500 CE. The articles in the remaining four volumes
are more solidly anchored to the time periods of each particular
volume.
Examining Africa’s past represents, in many ways, a
supreme challenge to scholarly endeavor. Some of it is
known, but much of it still awaits further research. It is
possible to lay out a broad outline of the past, but fundamental
questions remain. For example, what sparked the
massive expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples, a population
movement that lasted centuries and that transformed
the cultural and political landscape of the continent?
How did Africans learn to make iron, and how did ironmaking
technology spread from region to region? Exactly
who were the Egyptians? Were they, as many Afrocentric
scholars have argued, black Africans who migrated into
the Nile River Valley from elsewhere? Or, as many traditional
Egyptologists have maintained, were they indigenous
to Egypt? Or were they a mixture of peoples? How
were empires such as Mali, Ghana, and Songhai governed,
and what was the relationship between rulers and
ruled? How extensive was the impact of the transatlantic
slave trade on Africa? What is the legacy of colonialism,
and how do we measure its impact today? Why is Africa
today the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged continent?
What will it take to change this situation?
Fundamental questions like these serve to spur further
research on both the African past and present. There
is a desire—indeed a pressing need—to discover more
about Africa’s past and to better understand its present. For
millions of people around the world, in Africa and elsewhere,
it is part of a discovery of their own traditions and
heritage as well as those of their neighbors and their ancestors.
For others, it is a wish for knowledge. Who can let
languish the exploration of so vast a part of human life and
history?
When using this encyclopedia, readers should keep
in mind the vastness and diversity of Africa itself. It is the
world’s second-largest continent, occupying one-fifth of
the earth’s land surface. It contains the world’s longest
river, the Nile, and its largest desert, the Sahara. The continent’s
climate and topography exhibit tremendous variation.
Thus it is not surprising that Africa is equally vast
and rich in the diversity of its peoples and cultures. Simply
put, this great diversity makes it impossible to offer a comprehensive
treatment of African history and culture for any
of the encyclopedia’s chronological periods. As a result,
choices had to be made about what to include and what to
leave out. On the whole this has been done following several
simple criteria. Among the most important of these
are, first: What are the most significant historical developments
and cultural features of Africa, past and present?
Second: What are the best-established facts and interpretations?
Third: What will be most useful and interesting for
the reader? And fourth: What information will be most
helpful in bringing Africa’s past and present to life for the
reader? It is the hope of everyone associated with this project—
the writer, the editors, and others—that these criteria
have resulted in an array of articles that illuminate the
richness and variety of African life and culture over time. It
also is our hope that this work will stimulate those who
read and use it to continue to learn more about how, in the
words of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE),
there is always something new coming out of Africa.
R. Hunt Davis, Jr.