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The Cambridge History of Africa Vol. 2: from c. 500 BC to AD 1050

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from c. 500 BC to AD 1050

Series The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 2

Edited by J. D. Fage

Publication Date 1978

Hardback ISBN-10
0521215927

Hardback ISBN-13
9780521215923

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) 10.1017/CHOL9780521215923

Overview

After the prehistory of Volume 1, Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Africa deals with the beginnings of history. It is about 500 B.C. that historical sources begin to embrace all Africa north of the Sahara and, by the end of the period, documentation is also beginning to appear for parts of sub-Saharan Africa. North of the Sahara, this situation arises since Africans were sharing in the major civilizations of the Mediterranean world. It is shown that these northern Africans were not simply passive recipients of Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Arab influences, or of the great religions and cultures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam coming from the Semitic world. They adapted these things to their own particular needs and purposes, and sometimes too contributed to their general development. But the North African civilization failed to make headway south of the Sahara. The agricultural crops that sustained it were unsuited to the tropics: the growth of populations large enough to secure effective mobilization of resources therefore depended on the development of new crops by Sudanic cultivators immediately south of the Sahara. When this had been done, the foundations were laid for a wholly African civilization and, by the end of the period, the Bantu expansion had brought almost all the southern half of the continent within its sphere.

For more details of the
print book, and how to buy it online, please see
from c. 500 BC to AD 1050 in the Cambridge University Press online
catalogue.

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The Cambridge History of Africa

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Introduction
by
J. D. Fage

The legacy of prehistory: an essay on the background to the individuality of African cultures
by
J. Desmond Clark

North Africa in the period of Phoenician and Greek colonization, c. 800 to 323 BC
by
R. C. C. Law

North Africa in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, 323 BC to AD 305
by
R. C. C. Law

The Nilotic Sudan and Ethiopia, C. 660 BC to C. AD 600
by
P. L. Shinnie

Trans-Saharan contacts and the Iron Age in West Africa
by
Raymond Mauny

The emergence of Bantu Africa
by
Roland Oliver and Brian M. Fagan

The Christian period in Mediterranean Africa, C. AD 200 to 700
by
W. H. C. Frend

The Arab conquest and the rise of Islam in North Africa
by
Michael Brett

Christian Nubia
by
P. L. Shinnie

The Fatimid revolution (861–973) and its aftermath in North Africa
by
Michael Brett

The Sahara and the Sudan from the Arab conquest of the Maghrib to the rise of the Almoravids
by
Nehemia Levtzion

Bibliographical essays

Bibliography

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