Ohio University Press (Athens)
15 August 2007
book listing
There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa's history. In Themes in West Africa's History, editor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and his contributors meet this need, examining key themes in West Africa's prehistory to the present through the lenses of their different disciplines.
The contents of the book comprise an introduction and thirteen chapters divided into three parts. Each chapter provides an overview of existing literature on major topics, as well as a short list of recommended reading, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. The first part of the book examines paths to a West African past, including perspectives from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two probes environment, society, and agency and historical change through essays on the slave trade, social inequality, religious interaction, poverty, disease, and urbanization. Part three sheds light on contemporary West Africa in exploring how economic and political developments have shaped religious expression and identity in significant ways.
Themes in West Africa's History represents a range of intellectual views and interpretations from leading scholars on West Africa's history. It will appeal to college undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the way it draws on different disciplines and expertise to bring together key themes in West Africa's history, from prehistory to the present.
Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times (Ohio, 2001).
Themes in West Africa's History — (2006)
Edited by Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong
$49.95 (hardcover) ISBN: 0-8214-1640-5/$24.95 (paper) ISBN: 0-8214-1641-3
Ohio University Press. 288 pages
Contents
The Holocene Prehistory by Susan Keech McIntosh
Ecology and Culture in West Africa by James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Linguistics and History by M. E. Kropp Dakubu
Oral Tradition & Perceptions of History from the Manding Peoples by David Conrad
Slavery & Slave Trade, 1450–1930 by Patrick Manning
Class, Caste, and Social Inequality by Ismail Rashid
Religious Interactions in the Pre-Twentieth Century by Pash Obeng
Pre-colonial and Colonial Poverty by Ogbu U. Kalu
Disease in West African History by Emmanuel Akyeampong
Urbanization in Colonial and Pre-colonial West Africa by Andreas Eckert
Commodities, Mercedes-Benz, and Structural Adjustment by Celestin Monga
Ethnicity, Conflict, and the State in Contemporary West Africa by Cyril Daddieh
Pentacostalism, Islam, and Culture: New Religious Movements by Brian Larkin and Birgit Meye
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