The Civilizations of Africa:
A History to 1800
by Christopher Ehret
480 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
80 halftones, 10 line drawings, 24 maps
http://www.upress.virginia.edu/books/ehret2.html#Related%20LinksCloth
ISBN 0-8139-2084-1 • $50.00
Paper ISBN 0-8139-2085-X • $22.50
Available May 2002
With his focus on precolonial Africa, Christopher Ehret provides in The
Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 a remarkably complete and
original overview of African history during the long periods sparsely
covered in most other general histories of the continent. He examines
African inventions and civilizations from 16,000 BCE to 1800 CE from
the northern tip of Tunisia to the Cape of Good Hope in the south.
Logically organized by topic and era, Ehret’s heavily illustrated and easily
accessible text reveals the diversity of African history. It explores the
wide range of social and cultural as well as technological and economic
change in Africa, and it depicts African agricultural, social, political,
cultural, technological, and economic history in relation to developments
in the rest of the world. Designed to address the glaring lack of texts
concentrating on Africa before 1800, this book can be fruitfully combined
with histories of Africa since 1800 to build a full and well-rounded
understanding of the roles of Africa’s peoples in human history.
From the text:
"Africa lies at the heart of human
history. It is the continent from which
the distant ancestors of every one of us,
no matter who we are today, originally
came. Its peoples participated
integrally in the great transformations
of world history. . . . Bigger than the
United States, China, India, Australia,
and Europe combined, the African
continent presents us with a historical
panorama of surpassing richness and
diversity."
Table of Contents
Introducing Africa and Its History
Africa in a Global Frame
Getting the Terms of Our Discourse
Straight
Themes in History: What to Look For
in Our Reading
Africa and Human Origins
Africa before the Agricultural Age,
16,000–9000 BCE
Africa and the World: From Gathering
to Farming
Geography and Climate in African
History
Afrasan Civilization
Nilo-Saharan Peoples and the Middle
Nile Archeological Tradition
Niger-Congo Civilization
Khoisan Civilization
Summing Up the Period 16,000–9000
bce in Africa
Culture and Technology in Africa,
9000–3500 BCE
The Environments of Agricultural
Invention
Inventing Agriculture: The Eastern
Sahara, 9000–5500 BCE
The Aquatic Tradition of the Sudan,
9000–5500 BCE
Sudanic Civilization: The Intertwining
of the Sudanic
Agripastoral and the Aquatic
Traditions
Inventing Agriculture: The Horn of
Africa and the Northern
Sahara, 9000–5500 BCE
Agricultural Invention: West African
Planting Agriculture,
9000–5500 BCE
Livelihood and Culture History in
Africa, 5500–3500 BCE
Themes in the History of Culture,
9000–3500 BCE
Persistent Gatherer-Hunters: The
Southern Third of Africa
Africa 9000–3500 bce in the Context
of World History
Diverging Paths of History: Africa,
3500–1000 BCE
Africa in Comparative Historical
Perspective
The Spread of Agriculture into Central
Africa
Cultivation and Herding Come to
Eastern Africa
The Middle Frontier: Early Agriculture
in the Upper Nile Region
Sahara, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa,
3500–1000 BCE
New Ways of Life in Northeastern
Africa
Crops and Metals in West Africa
Lands of States and Towns: Nubia and
Egypt
Africa, 3500–1000 BCE: What Have
We Learned?
An Age of Commerce, an Age of
Iron: Africa, 1000 BCE to 300 CE
Africa in World History, 1000 bce to
300 CE
Eastern Africa in Its Classical Age
Western Equatorial Africa: Social and
Economic Repercussions
of Agricultural Expansion
Commerce, Merchants, and States:
Northeastern Africa
North Africa in the Carthaginian and
Roman Eras
An African Development of
Commerce: West Africa, 1000 BCE
to 300 BCE
Southern, Central, and Eastern
Africa: The Middle Centuries, 300–
1450
Africa and the World: Issues and
Themes of the Age
Subsistence and Society in Southern
Africa, 300–1450
Growth of Political Scale: The
Southern Woodland Savannas
and Equatorial Rainforest, 600–1450
Eastern Africa, 300–1450
Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa:
Taking the Long View
Northeastern, West, and North
Africa: The Middle Centuries, 300–
1450
Themes of Change
Northeastern Africa, 300–1450
West Africa, 300–1450
North Africa and the Sahara, 300–
1450: Competing Legitimacies,
Competing Hegemonies
Agriculture, Technology, and Culture:
A Continental Overview,
300–1450
The Early Atlantic Age, 1450–1640
Africa and the World Enter a New
Historical Era
Western Africa, 1450–1640
Atlantic Commerce and the Coastal
Hinterlands of Africa
Commerce, Religion, and Political
Struggle in Northeastern
Africa
Northern Africa and the Sahara
History in the Eastern and Central
Sudan, 1450–1640
History in the African Interior, 1450–
1640
Africa in the Era of the Atlantic
Slave Trade, 1640–1800
The Middle Era of the Atlantic Age:
Themes and Issues
West Africa in the Era of the Slave
Trade
Central Africa: The Expanding Impact
of Atlantic Commerce
Southern Africa: New Pastoral and
Trading Frontiers
Eastern Africa: States and Stateless
Societies
Northeastern Africa: An Age of
Political and Cultural Realignment
North Africa: The Decline of Ottoman
Rule
The Close of the Eighteenth Century:
A New Era Begins
Reviews
"An authoritative and strikingly
original overview of African history up
to 1800, written at a level that will be
accessible to entering college
students."
—Patrick Manning, Northeastern
University, author of Migration in
Modern World History, 1500-2000
The Author
Christopher Ehret is Professor of
History at the University of California,
Los Angeles, and the author of An
African Classical Age: Eastern and
Southern Africa in World History, 1000
B.C. to A.D. 400 (Virginia).
Related Links
The Civilizations of Africa: A
History to 1800
by Christopher Ehret
480 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-2084-1 • $50.00
Paper ISBN 0-8139-2085-X • $22.50
Available May 2002
http://www.upress.virginia.edu/ehret2.html
Revised 7/1/02