"Despite the growing interest in Africa, the continent's built environment is still largely unfamiliar in many parts of the world. The seven volumes of the Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide form the first comprehensive overview of architecture south of the Sahara that does justice to the region's wealth of buildings. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, richly illustrated texts by more than 350 authors from Africa and across the globe come together to produce a superlative work. On the basis of 850 selected buildings and over 200 thematic articles, the continent's building culture is elucidated and contextualised. The diverse contributions paint a multifaceted picture of Africa's architecture in the twenty-first century, a discipline shaped by traditional and colonial roots as well as today's global interconnections and challenges. An introductory volume on the history and theory of African architecture provides essential background knowledge."--Publisher

First published in 1972, Africa and the World places the African past within the wider context of world events, while providing a wealth of geographical and ethnographic information about the continent. The book specifically focuses on the pre-colonial and early colonial history of sub-Saharan Africa. Designed for those interested in the impact of Europe on the non-Western world, the volume provides an account of the major economic and social factors that have shaped African history. Information from studies in anthropology, archaeology, history, and art are included as well. Africa and the World is an essential and accessible resource for those interested in world history or African studies.

"This book tells the story of an African world that grew out of more than one thousand years of trans-Saharan trade linking the Mediterranean lands of North Africa with the internal Sudanic grasslands stretching from the Nile River to the Atlantic Ocean. It traces the early role of the Sahara, the globe's largest desert, as a divider that separated these two regions into very different worlds. During the heyday of camel caravan traffic--from the eighth-century CE Arab invasions of North Africa to the early-twentieth-century building of European colonial railroads that linked the Sudan with the Atlantic--the Sahara became one of the world's great commercial highways. The most enduring impact of this trade and the common cultural reference point of trans-Saharan Africa was Islam. This faith played various roles throughout the region, as a legal system for regulating trade, an inspiration for reformist religious-political movements, and a vehicle of literacy and cosmopolitan knowledge that inspired creativity--often of a very unorthodox kind--within the various ethno-linguistic communities of the region. From the mid-1400s, European voyages to the coast of West and Central Africa provided an alternative international trade route that marginalized trans-Saharan commerce in global terms but stimulated its accelerated local growth. Inland territorial conquest by France and Britain in the 1800s and early 1900s brought more serious disruptions. Trans-Saharan culture, however, not only adapted to these colonial and postcolonial changes but often thrived upon them to remain a living force well into the twenty-first century"--Provided by publisher.

These papers explore the history of the tropical regions of the Atlantic basin, sometimes focused on the Caribbean, sometimes on Africa, but always with a comparative dimension. The Atlantic basin is central to most of these comparisons, but they are a part of an even broader effort to capture the perspective of world history. Some deal with the shores of the Atlantic in the framework of economic history, but the author's concern is most particularly with the role of the environment in history, especially the disease environment. Disease was particularly important for migrants who moved from one disease environment to another. In the tropical Atlantic, disease was a crucial factor in the formation of the slave trade, affecting both the involuntary passengers and those who came out from Europe to manage the trade.

West Africa and the eastern Atlantic stretching from Mauritania in the north to Namibia in the south offer a large latitudinal stretch incorporating nearly symmetrical climatic gradients from the Equator. On the time scale of Quaternary Glacial and Interglacial cycles, today, we possess well-documented and recently published marine sedimentary records showing changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulations and terrestrial fluxes. Deep-sea sediment records contain a wide range of palaeoenvironmental indicators like oxygen and carbon isotopes, alkenones, foraminiferal and other planktonic assemblages over time periods up to and greater than 125,000 years. These are signals of temperature and circulation shifts and allow Interglacial and Glacial comparisons on a regional and inter-hemispheric scale. However, this effort to synthesize the existing knowledge cannot yet aspire to a global modelling. Linking with terrestrial records, albeit spatially patchy and generally lacking a firm chronology, this book points to shorter time scale chronologies from lakes, marshes and river deposits. Diverse and not very wellknown literature, both French and English, is reported here. Lastly, the book records recent knowledge of the first steps of human occupation of frequently hostile environments and considers the environmental impact of ancient and modern societies.* Covers the recent studies about marine Quaternary environments off West Africa, as well as continental Quaternary environments of tropical and sub-tropical West Africa (over 10,000 to 100,000 years)* Compares the parallel between palae-oenvironmental trends according to latitudinal gradients

The country owed its name to the Portuguese explorer, Petro da Cintra, who was the first European to sight and map the Freetown Habour. The original Portuguese name, Sierra Lyoa (Lion Mountains) describes the range of hills that surrounds the habour. The capital Freetown commands one of the world's largest natural habours. The country is located on the coast of West Africa, bounded on the North and East by Guinea, on the East by Liberia, and on the West by the Atlantic Ocean. It has many miles of beautiful sandy beaches. The backbone of the economy is agriculture, but it is rich in minerals - diamonds, gold, bauxite, and rutile. The book traces the rich pre-colonial history of a people whose main occupations then were agriculture and trade. Communal life was highly regulated by chiefs, who presided over their subjects. These societies were governed by what is now called "customary laws". The book also debunks the thinking that Pedro da Cintra discovered Sierra Leone; he was not even the first European to set foot in Sierra Leone. It traces exhaustively the exploitative rule of the British Colonial Administration until its independence on 27th April 1961. Sierra Leone is credited as being, the "Athens of West Africa". How this came about is explained at length. How can a small country so far removed from Athens be credited as such? The primary reason was for its learning. The first University in sub-Saharan Africa was established in Sierra Leone, and it attracted students from all over the continent. Woven into this academic fabric, is the politico-socio-economic development from the founding of the state up to the present. It traces the turbulent times the country has been through: coups and countercoups, declaration of a one party state, a brutal 11-year civil war, and the bastardisation of the constitution by various regimes, since independence up to the present.

This book charts the convergence of science, culture, and politics across Portugal's empire, showing how a global geographical concept was born. In accessible, narrative prose, this book explores the unexpected forms that science took in the early modern world. It highlights little-known linkages between Asia and the Atlantic world.

A presentation of important issues in the study of modern Africa. It addresses: decolonization and the end of Empire; democracy and the nation state; epidemics in Africa - the human and financial costs; development - failure or success; the African environment - origins of a crisis; and more.

This handbook places emphasis on modern/contemporary times, and offers relevant sophisticated and comprehensive overviews. It aims to emphasize the religious, economic, political, cultural and social connections between Africa and the rest of the world and features comparisons as well as an interdisciplinary approach in order to examine the place of Africa in global history. "This book makes an important contribution to the discussion on the place of Africa in the world and of the world in Africa. An outstanding work of scholarship, it powerfully demonstrates that Africa is not marginal to global concerns. Its labor and resources have made our world, and the continent deserves our respect." – Mukhtar Umar Bunza, Professor of Social History, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, and Commissioner for Higher Education, Kebbi State, Nigeria "This is a deep plunge into the critical place of Africa in global history. The handbook blends a rich set of important tapestries and analysis of the conceptual framework of African diaspora histories, imperialism and globalization. By foregrounding the authentic voices of African interpreters of transnational interactions and exchanges, the Handbook demonstrates a genuine commitment to the promotion of decolonized and indigenous knowledge on African continent and its peoples." – Samuel Oloruntoba, Visiting Research Professor, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University