The Peoples of the Middle Niger: The Island of Gold (Peoples of Africa) - Tapa dura

McIntosh, Roderick James

 
9780631173618: The Peoples of the Middle Niger: The Island of Gold (Peoples of Africa)
Tapa dura
ISBN 10: 0631173617 ISBN 13: 9780631173618
Editorial: Wiley-Blackwell, 1998

Sinopsis

The Peoples of the Middle Niger

This book provides the first comprehensive history of the peoples of the Middle Niger written by an English-speaking scholar. ‘The Island of Gold’ was the medieval Muslim and later European name for a fabled source of gold and other tropical riches. Although the floodplain of the Niger river lies far from the goldfields, the mosaic of peoples along the Middle Niger created a wealth of grain, fish, and livestock that supported some of Africa’s oldest cities, including Timbuktu. These ancient cities of the region that came to be known as Western Sudan were founded without outside stimulation and their inhabitants long resisted the coercive, centralized state that characterized the origins of earliest towns elsewhere.

In this book, Roderick James McIntosh uses the latest archaeological and anthropological research to provide a bold overview of the distant origins of life for the inhabitants of the Middle Niger, and an explanation for their social evolution. He shows, for instance, the difficulties the peoples faced in adapting to an unpredictable climate, and how their particular social organization determined the unusual nature of their responses to that change. Throughout the book oral traditions are integrated into the story, providing vivid insights into the inhabitants' complex culture and belief systems.

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Acerca del autor

Roderick J. McIntosh

The author is Professor of Anthropology at Rice University, Texas. As an undergraduate at Yale he excavated in Ghana, and his PhD research involved extensive work at Jenne-jeno. He has now worked for twenty years in Mali, and two years in Senegal. In 1990 he was Guggenheim Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford) and in 1991 he was Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Dakar, Senegal. His previous publications include, with S. K. McIntosh, Prehistoric Investigations at Jenne, Mali (1980) and, edited with P R. Schmidt, Plundering Africa's Past (1996).

De la contraportada

This book provides the first comprehensive history of the peoples of the Middle Niger written by an English-speaking scholar. ‘The Island of Gold’ was the medieval Muslim and later European name for a fabled source of gold and other tropical riches. Although the floodplain of the Niger river lies far from the goldfields, the mosaic of peoples along the Middle Niger created a wealth of grain, fish, and livestock that supported some of Africa’s oldest cities, including Timbuktu. These ancient cities of the region that came to be known as Western Sudan were founded without outside stimulation and their inhabitants long resisted the coercive, centralized state that characterized the origins of earliest towns elsewhere.

In this book, Roderick James McIntosh uses the latest archaeological and anthropological research to provide a bold overview of the distant origins of life for the inhabitants of the Middle Niger, and an explanation for their social evolution. He shows, for instance, the difficulties the peoples faced in adapting to an unpredictable climate, and how their particular social organization determined the unusual nature of their responses to that change. Throughout the book oral traditions are integrated into the story, providing vivid insights into the inhabitants' complex culture and belief systems.

De la solapa interior

This book provides the first comprehensive history of the peoples of the Middle Niger written by an English-speaking scholar. 'The Island of Gold' was the medieval Muslim and later European name for a fabled source of gold and other tropical riches. Although the floodplain of the Niger river lies far from the goldfields, the mosaic of peoples along the Middle Niger created a wealth of grain, fish, and livestock that supported some of Africa's oldest cities, including Timbuktu. These ancient cities of the region that came to be known as Western Sudan were founded without outside stimulation and their inhabitants long resisted the coercive, centralized state that characterized the origins of earliest towns elsewhere.

In this book, Roderick James McIntosh uses the latest archaeological and anthropological research to provide a bold overview of the distant origins of life for the inhabitants of the Middle Niger, and an explanation for their social evolution. He shows, for instance, the difficulties the peoples faced in adapting to an unpredictable climate, and how their particular social organization determined the unusual nature of their responses to that change. Throughout the book oral traditions are integrated into the story, providing vivid insights into the inhabitants' complex culture and belief systems.

"Sobre este título" puede pertenecer a otra edición de este libro.

Editorial
Wiley-Blackwell
Año de publicación
1998
Idioma
Inglés
ISBN 10 
0631173617
ISBN 13 
9780631173618
Encuadernación
Tapa dura
Número de páginas
375
Contacto del fabricante
no disponible
Persona responsable
no disponible