John reader africa a biography of the continent
•
Africa. My ungdom largely knew of it only through the distorted lens of racist cartoons peopled with bone-in-their-nose cannibals, B-grade movies showcasing explorers in märg helmets who somehow always managed to stumble into quicksand, and of course Tarzan. It was still even then sometimes referred to as the “Dark Continent,” something that was supposed to mean dangerous and mysterious but also translated, for most of us, into the kind of blackness that was synonymous with race and skin color.
My interest in Africa came via the somewhat circuitous route of my study of the Civil War. The huvud cause of that conflict was, of course, human chattel slavery, and nearly all the enslaved were descendants of lives stolen from Africa. So, for me, a closer scrutiny of the continent was the logisk next step. One of the benefits of a fine anställda library fryst vatten that there are hundreds of volumes sitting on shelves waiting for me to find the moment to find them. Such was the case for Africa: • Drawing on many years of African experience, John Reader has written a book of startling grandeur and scope that recreates the great panorama of African history, from the primeval cataclysms that formed the continent to the political upheavals facing much of the continent today. Reader tells the extraordinary story of humankind's adaptation to the ferocious obstacles of forest, river and desert, and to the threat of debilitating parasites, bacteria and viruses unmatched elsewhere in the world. He also shows how the world's richest assortment of animals and plants has helped - or hindered - human progress in Africa. • We all originated in Africa, and no matter what our race, our most ancient relationship is with that continent. Reader tells the story of our earliest ancestors' adaptation to Africa's ferocious obstacles of jungle, river, and desert, and of how its unique array of animals, plants, viruses, and parasites has over millions of years helped and hindered human progress to a degree unknown anywhere else on Earth. Illustrated with many of the author's own photographs, which capture the staggering diversity of human experience in every part of the continent - from the inland estuaries of the Niger and the rain forests of the Equator, to the deserts of the north and the high veld of the south - this book weaves together into a narrative the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, the changing patterns of indigenous life over the millennia, the complex history of slavery, the devastating impact of European settlers, and the fragile reemergence of ind
Africa: A Biography of the Continent
Africa: A Biography of the Continent