Africa a biography of the continent summary

          Reader attempts nothing less than the epic as he boldly surveys the history of Africa from the tectonic activities that billions of years ago shaped the....

          Africa: A Biography of the Continent

          October 1, 2022
          “Were it not for the importunities of Europe, Africa might have enlarged upon its indigenous talents and found an independent route to the present – one that was inspired by resolutions from within rather than examples from without.

          The rise and fall of former civilisations in Africa are discussed in detail and against the backdrop of 'commodities' such as gold, ivory and slaves.

        1. The author has described the birth and the life of humanity in great detail originating in Africa and then spreading out to the various parts of the continent.
        2. Reader attempts nothing less than the epic as he boldly surveys the history of Africa from the tectonic activities that billions of years ago shaped the.
        3. The story of humans in Africa is the story of humankind.
        4. Reader provides a great broad-brush overview of African history from an Africa-centred perspective, drawing heavily on the evolution of hominids, geology.

          5. The moment passed, however, during the fifteenth century and cannot be retrieved. Since then the history of Africa has been the story of an ancient continent and its inhabitants trying to accommodate the conceits of modern humans whose ancestors left the cradle-land 100,000 years ago, and who came back 500 years ago, behaving as though they owned the place…”
          - John Reader, Africa: A Biography of a Continent

          John Reader’s Africa is about as ambitious a volume as you can imagine.

          In 682 pages of text, he attempts to encompass the entire existence of a vast continent, from its literal formation at the dawn of time, right up till the book’s 1997 publication date. Instead of diving deeply into one