Great Kingdoms of Africa

The several pre-Colonial kingdoms of Africa are barely familiar to most Western readers. John Parker has gathered a team of erudite academic writers to present Great Kingdoms of Africa, a panorama of civilizations no less complex and fascinating than those of the same territories in the world of today. Readers will be enchanted, ashamed, admiring, and respectful of civilizations and their legendary leaders. Pages describe the historic economy of each region, variously derived from diamonds and gold, minerals, salt, a remarkably beautiful range of art in multiple media, and, more sadly, from exotic diseases and slavery. The nine kingdoms are wondrous sagas, some separated even now by unnatural boundaries. Along with political challenges, our chance to better understand them remains limited.

Africa is a continent, not a single country, and with that definition, the diversity is evident in the climate, morphology, and, perhaps above all, the cultures. Distances are greater than maps suggest. As an example, the two main sub-Saharan language families, the Nilotic and Bantu, bear no relation to those spanning the northern coast.

Great African Kingdoms is demanding. But once the term ‘Kingdom’ is recognized and respected, only the wholly unfamiliar names slow down the reader.