Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Part I. Continental Perspectives: Perimeters: 1. Prelude: Africa and the historians; 2. Out of Africa: the precursors; 3. Environment, language and art c. 10,000–c. 500 BCE; 4. Producing more food c. 10,000–c. 500 BCE 5. Copper and iron c. 600 BCE–c. 1000 CE; 6. Models: Production, Power and Gender; Part II. Regional Histories to the Sixteenth Century: 7. Central Africa; 8. East Africa; 9. Africa south of the Limpopo; 10. Northern Africa in antiquity; 11. Northern Africa from the seventh century CE; 12. The North-East; 13; The Western Sudan; 14. West Africa: from the savanna to the sea; Part III. Regional Historis to c. 1870: 15. Northern Africa; 16. The Western Sudan; 17. The Central Sudan; 18. The Atlantic slave trade; 19. West Africa to 1870; 21. Central Africa; 22. Southern Africa; 23. East and East Central Africa Maps: 1. Human evolution: archaeological sites; 2. African language families; 3. Bantu Languages; 4. Cradles of domestication; 5. Central Africa; 6. Eastern Africa; 7. South Africa; 8. Northern Africa in antiquity; 9. Northern Africa (seventh to twelfth centuries); 10. Egypt and the Near East: Fatimids and Mamluks; 11. The North-East; 12. The Western Sudan (to c. 1600); 13. Lower Guinea; 14. The Western and Central Sudan: the nineteenth century; 15. Southern Africa: the nineteenth century 16. East and Central Africa: the nineteenth century. Diagrams: 1. Human evolution; 2. Long-term climate change; 3. African language families: Afroasiatic; 4. African language families: Nilo-Saharan; 5. African language families: Kordofanian and Niger-Congo.