Bantu Africa: 3500 BCE to Present

by Catherine Cymone Fourshey, Rhonda M. Gonzales, Christine Saidi

Combining history, archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics, Bantu 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

210 pages, Paperback

Published October 2, 2017

Reviews

[Dave Pier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been looking for a long time for a book that would make recent research/theories about the Bantu migration accessible to undergraduates. This more or less succeeds. I didn't assign the first chapter, because I thought it would be too difficult for undergrads to slog through--with so many names of hypothetical Bantu groupings of the past. I used it as the basis for a lecture instead. The authors are students of Christopher Ehret's, and his controversial ideas predominate. As with Ehret, I sometimes found myself wishing they would use a speculative, rather than declarative voice. Some deductions about cultures of the past seemed too sure, or might have been balanced by counter-deductions. The authors are convincing in positing hospitality as a deep cultural Bantu trait, but more might have been said about similarly historically deep tendencies toward distrust of outsiders (and dubious insiders) which an ideology of hospitality was likely meant to keep in check. Instead, hospitality is presented, in my view too simply, as the dominant culture of old, which was ruined by modern developments. Overall, though, a worthwhile read for anyone interested in ancient Africa, and accessible to early college students--if not likely to be loved by them.