Product Review

Combining history, archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics, Bantu Africa: 3500 BCE to Present, synthesizes current scholarship on one of the most important cultural zones in world history--an area larger than the United States--whose traditions span several thousand years. The authors show how Bantu cultural ideas continue to shape modern realities in new contexts. By examining the cultural, political, religious, economic, and social issues in the Bantu world, Bantu Africa gives students an understanding of the long-term history of an immense cultural zone. The book also addresses the types of social relationships Bantu-speaking people had with people of distinct linguistic and cultural traditions, the kinds of innovations that came out of those cross-cultural interactions, the tactics they used to negotiate societal tensions, the ways in which gender and seniority dynamics influenced societal institutions, and the extent to which Bantu-speaking people shaped Atlantic and Indian Ocean History.