Early Africa

by MILLIKEN & LORENZ EDUCATIONAL PRESS

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000ZK6C0M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,936 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Product Description

Explore the fascinating kingdoms of ancient Africa! This book covers the mighty African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay--rich in culture and tradition--that sprang up along the continent s west coast as far back as 300 B.C. Rivaling the great ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, these early African cultures, through strength and ingenuity, overcame tremendous odds in adapting to the often harsh African climate and environment. Special emphasis is given to the rich tradition of African arts in the form of music, dance, and sculpture as well as to the prominence of religion and the importance of the family as principal organizing features of African society. An extensive teacher guide, crossword puzzles, map activities, comprehension questions, as well as critical thinking questions are included. (48 pages)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Resource for a Much-Overlooked Topic, June 3, 2008

By 

Daniel L. Berek (Flanders, NJ, United States) - See all my reviews

= Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Early Africa (Toy)

It has been nearly a half century since acclaimed British historian and Africanist Basil Davidson proposed that the history of pre-colonial Black Africa has been overlooked, largely because of Western bias (if not outright racism). To this day, the history of early Africa is still given scant attention in history books and courses. For this reason, this book provides a valuable and much-needed resource for teachers of students in grades 5-9 in world history courses. (To wit, my school's world history textbook is a tome of 525 pages, of which only 7 are devoted to pre-colonial Africa.)

This slender volume covers early African migrations, prehistoric rock art, the Nok sculpture of the Bantu-speaking people in modern-day Nigeria), Ancient Ghana, the ancient and contemporary Asante people, and Mali and Songhay. Each unit includes a map study and a short review. This is a decent survey, but it could have been stronger had the authors included Kush (with Meroe), Axum (Ethiopia), Benin (for its priceless bronze sculpture and ties to contemporary Haiti), and Great Zimbabwe. The short chapter on Asante art is strong on the plastic arts but weak on the famed Anansi trickster tales. I agree with Dr. Davidson that Ancient Egypt was as much a black African as Middle Eastern civilization; while it is beyond the scope of this book to include a thorough history of Ancient Egypt, it should have at least been mentioned in a chapter on Kush.

The black-and-white illustrations are attractive, but a teacher would do well to supplement these with photos from art books and the Internet; a well-rounded unit on pre-colonial Africa should include hands-on art activities, for which the instructor should consult educational art books and the Web. I would also recommend teaching something about the oral traditions passed down through families of griots, especially the Mali epic of Sundiata; after all, much of what we know (at least until the arrival of Muslim scholars in Timbuktu and elsewhere) has been passed down orally, much as with much of African American slaves in the US. The Internet is also a handy source of African music and travel videos.

Nevertheless, this book provides a much needed framework for constructing a decent unit on African history, a fascinating topic too long neglected.