Nile Valley Civilization: A 10,000 Year History

Much has been written about African history and culture and yet one will comb this vast literature nearly in vain for a complete and comprehensive survey of African civilizations by a single author. The multi-volume UNESCO General History of Africa 1 is, in effect, an anthology and while valuable and wide-ranging, suffers the limitations that all works of collective authorship do. Not all the essays are of comparable quality, different ‘schools of thought’ contend with one another, and a consequent lack of consistency and a unifying thread compromises the impact of the grand sweep of civilization on the world’s second-largest continent, the original home of humankind. A single author, with the requisite scholarly foundation and literary skills, could bring a certain seamlessness to the topic.