This book is a very short introduction to a very big topic. In fact, it is a very short introduction to two very big topics. On the one hand, it is about a place and its people: Africa. On the other, it is about the past of that place, as it has been envisaged by Africans and written about by historians. The sheer scale of both place and past is colossal. Africa: an entire continent, in terms of language and culture the world’s most diverse, stretching from the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope and today comprising over 50 separate nations. The cradle.
