"The ancestors of all humanity evolved in Africa," notes photojournalist John Reader at the beginning of this epic, panoramic overview of African history. From the formation of the continent to the present, Reader's informative narrative tells the story of the earliest dwellers and the natural obstacles of desert, jungle, and animals they faced, expertly entwining the development of humanity with the ecological and geographical evolution of the continent. He demonstrates how the physical makeup of Africa is like nowhere else on earth, both supporting and crippling human progress over time. Reader, who has lived and traveled in Africa for many years, explores the migration of humanity as early as 100,000 years ago out of Africa into Europe and South America, forming the earliest indigenous populations in these areas. At the same time he traces the effects of European settlers, slavery, and tribal warfare to the present day's independent states that have suffered through chronic disease, famine, and brutal conflict. Reader's passion for this continent is evident throughout the text, bringing to life his scrupulous research which explores in fascinating detail, the intricate and complex history of Africa. --Jeremy Storey


From Publishers Weekly
Africa's collision with the Eurasian landmass 30 million years ago; the emergence of upright, bipedal human ancestors four million years ago; the migration of anatomically modern nomads out of Africa a mere 100,000 years ago; the rise of Africa's first literate indigenous civilization, Aksum (ancient Ethiopia) in the first century A.D.?these are signposts in a continent's evolution in Reader's unusual, enthralling survey. A British photojournalist who has spent most of his adult life in Africa, he writes with sweeping historical perspective and an engaging familiarity with the continent and its people. Ranging from the earliest known evidence of life on earth?6.6-billion-year-old fossilized bacteria?to recent upheavals in Rwanda and South Africa, this immensely rewarding synthesis is amplified by the author's deeply lyrical, quietly stunning photographs that evoke Africa's beauty and ancient roots. Reader refutes the notion of the Egyptian Nile region as a fulcrum that conveyed civilization to sub-Saharan Africa; instead, he argues, the relationship was one of pillager and pillaged. Blaming European colonizers' near-genocidal slaughter, exploitation and imposition of artificial nation-states for much of contemporary Africa's malaise, he maintains that the "dark continent" has been woefully misunderstood and misused throughout history. His eye-opening chronicle will change the way many think about Africa. Photos. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-A sweeping survey of the continent's history. Reader does an admirable job of documenting the story of humankind in Africa from its earliest inhabitants to the late 20th century. This massive volume is divided into eight parts, each covering a broad topic such as the emergence of man, African civilizations, or the impact of 19th-century European imperialism on the continent. These sections can stand alone without readers having to refer back to previous sections. Even though 10 percent of the book is devoted to notes and sources, the author has written a popular history rather than a scholarly tome. He does an excellent job of moving the narrative at a fast pace. Chapters are short and they can be easily read in one sitting. While the book is too broad in scope to provide detailed information on any given topic, it does give a good overview of the history of the world's second largest continent.Robert Burnham, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Thomas Pakenham
...a masterly synthesis of the geological, climatological, and paleontological discoveries of the last decades...


The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, John Ryle
...[a] very considerable achievement. The book is vibrant with affection for its subject, measured in its judgments, and it is hard to imagine a more lucid and balanced synthesis of the many disciplines that have cast light on the obscurities of the African past and the complexities of its present.


From Kirkus Reviews
A grand attempt to illuminate the history of the ``dark continent,'' using an almost stunning blend of disciplines from geology to anthropology to agronomy. Despite the breadth of the title, Reader (Missing Links, 1981, etc.) largely ignores Africa north of the Saharaa significant lacuna. Still, any attempt to cover billions of years of history (never mind 50-plus countries), will always result in gaps, elisions, and exclusions. One can quibble with his extremely detailed treatment of human evolutiona subject he has written about extensivelyor the relative short shrift he gives to modern African history, but it all comes down to a question of balance, and for the most part Reader does an admirable job of keeping his story rolling along. He begins right at the beginning with the formation of Earth and the primitive stirrings of life. Through an impressive mustering of scientific data, he recounts how changing conditions on the savanna opened a narrow niche that favored the evolution of hominids and eventually, through the relentless process of survival of the fittest, Homo sapiens. Reader is not so much a historian of dates and personalities, but of mass events and movements. He regards competition for resources, climatic shifts, geology and geography as infinitely more important in shaping history than any number of ``great men'' and their ideologies. For example, he sees slavery as a continent-wide catastrophe that drove everything from the rise of African kingdoms to the loss of the labor--and all that it could have created--of 11 million people, to the great South African diaspora that is usually attributed to the predations of Shaka Zulu. Once Africa entered the realm of formal, written history, the results have been almost unremittingly bleak. It's an old mantra, but the price of European civilization has been enormously high. And the postcolonial era hasn't been much better. That hairless hominid who spread out across the world has changed everything except his essential, animal self. Formidably researched, always readable, but necessarily incomplete. (55 b&w photos and maps) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
"Awe-inspiring . . . a masterly synthesis."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Deeply penetrating, intensely thought-provoking and thoroughly informed . . . one of the most important general surveys of Africa that has been produced in the last decade." --The Washington Post

In 1978, paleontologists in East Africa discovered the earliest evidence of our divergence from the apes: three pre-human footprints, striding away from a volcano, were preserved in the petrified surface of a mudpan over three million years ago. Out of Africa, the world's most ancient and stable landmass, Homo sapiens dispersed across the globe. And yet the continent that gave birth to human history has long been woefully misunderstood and mistreated by the rest of the world.

In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist John Reader brings to light Africa's geology and evolution, the majestic array of its landforms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism as well as recent political troubles and triumphs. Written in simple, elegant prose and illustrated with Reader's own photographs, Africa: A Biography of the Continent is an unforgettable book that will delight the general reader and expert alike.

"Breathtaking in its scope and detail." --San Francisco Chronicle


From the Inside Flap
"Awe-inspiring . . . a masterly synthesis."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Deeply penetrating, intensely thought-provoking and thoroughly informed . . . one of the most important general surveys of Africa that has been produced in the last decade." --The Washington Post

In 1978, paleontologists in East Africa discovered the earliest evidence of our divergence from the apes: three pre-human footprints, striding away from a volcano, were preserved in the petrified surface of a mudpan over three million years ago. Out of Africa, the world's most ancient and stable landmass, Homo sapiens dispersed across the globe.  And yet the continent that gave birth to human history has long been woefully misunderstood and mistreated by the rest of the world.

In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist John Reader brings to light Africa's geology and evolution, the majestic array of its landforms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism as well as recent political troubles and triumphs. Written in simple, elegant prose and illustrated with Reader's own photographs, Africa: A Biography of the Continent is an unforgettable book that will delight the general reader and expert alike.  

"Breathtaking in its scope and detail." --San Francisco Chronicle

FROM OUR EDITORS

This hardcover companion to the hit PBS series is a beautifully illustrated and engagingly insightful look at Africa today. All the richness and diversity of this magnificent continent is presented, from the Sahara Desert in Niger to the vast Great Lakes region. More than 170 stunning photographs lushly document the mystery and wonder of the birthplace of life on Earth.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

First and greatest of our planet's continents, Africa is the birthplace of our world: the earliest living organism, the earliest dinosaur egg, and the earliest mammal are all of African origin, and its Great Rift Valley was the cradle of the human race. From the vast sand sea of the Sahara to the lush jungles and mighty rivers of Central Africa to the sweeping southern veldt, it's a realm of unparalleled diversity that boasts spectacular landscapes, an extraordinary wealth of wildlife, a remarkable range of peoples and cultures, and a rich but surprisingly little known history.

We learn how a green ribbon of fertility along the Nile nourished the ancient Egyptian civilization whose pyramids still awe us after five millennia, and we marvel at the overgrown earthworks that mark the last traces of the lost cities of Sheba, only one of the many powerful kingdoms to rise and fall in the course of Africa's long history. We visit the Baka, a diminutive, communal people who thousands of years ago mastered the art of surviving in the rain forest but must now find a way to meet the challenges of modern civilization. We join a salt caravan trekking across the desert on an arduous journey that men and camels have made every year for centuries, dive with spear fishermen along the Swahili coast, wander with nomadic Masai herdsmen of East Africa, and descend with South African miners into the world's deepest, richest mines. Here too is the wildlife for which Africa is so famous, from the silverback gorillas who haunt the ever shrinking forest to the elephants migrating 600 miles through the Sahel to the crocodiles venerated by the Dogon from time immemorial, and much more.

A wonderful, extravagant tapestry of peoples, flora, and fauna, Africa is as colorful, as beautiful, as alluring, and as endlessly fascinating as the magnificent continent it celebrates.

FROM THE CRITICS

Brian W. Jones

Breathtaking in its scope and detail. -- San Francisco Chronicle

Thomas Pakenham

[Reader digs] millions of years farther back than is customary for African historians. The result is a masterly synthesis of the geological, climatological and paleontological discoveries of the last decades, which would have seemed even more astounding to early Victorians than our ability to fly to the moon. -- New York Times Book Review

Time Magazine

An absorbing safari into the soul of a continent.

Publishers Weekly

Africa's collision with the Eurasian landmass 30 million years ago; the emergence of upright, bipedal human ancestors four million years ago; the migration of anatomically modern nomads out of Africa a mere 100,000 years ago; the rise of Africa's first literate indigenous civilization, Aksum (ancient Ethiopia) in the first century A.D.these are signposts in a continent's evolution in Reader's unusual, enthralling survey. A British photojournalist who has spent most of his adult life in Africa, he writes with sweeping historical perspective and an engaging familiarity with the continent and its people. Ranging from the earliest known evidence of life on earth, 6.6-billion-year-old fossilized bacteria, to recent upheavals in Rwanda and South Africa, this immensely rewarding synthesis is amplified by the author's deeply lyrical, quietly stunning photographs that evoke Africa's beauty and ancient roots. Reader refutes the notion of the Egyptian Nile region as a fulcrum that conveyed civilization to sub-Saharan Africa; instead, he argues, the relationship was one of pillager and pillaged. Blaming European colonizers' near-genocidal slaughter, exploitation and imposition of artificial nation-states for much of contemporary Africa's malaise, he maintains that the "dark continent" has been woefully misunderstood and misused throughout history. His eye-opening chronicle will change the way many think about Africa.

Booknews

Tells the story of our earliest ancestors' adaptation to Africa's environment, and of how its unique array of plants, animals, viruses, and parasites has helped and hindered human progress. Weaves together into a richly fluent narrative the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, the changing patterns of indigenous life, the complex history of slavery, the impact of Europeans, and the reemergence of independent nations. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or. Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

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