All about the continent of Africa, from prehistory to modern times, with maps, environment, history, art, architecture, food, clothing, and more. A good choice for reports in school or for homeschoolers.
A first section on history runs from the first evolution of primates in Africa, through the early empires in Egypt and Sudan, to the medieval empires in West Africa and East Africa. We make clear the high cost of European domination of trade, but also that actual European colonization was mostly a late nineteenth century phenomenon, and that African countries are again independent today. Climate change plays a major role in the collapse at the end of the Bronze Age, and in a late medieval collapse associated with the Little Ice Age, as well as increasingly today with global warming.
A second section deals with daily life in Africa: food, clothing, tools, the use of bronze and iron, music and dance, the kind of games kids played, the history of swimming in Africa, and what kinds of houses, temples, chuches and mosques they built.
In a third section, there are many articles about African trade and economics. African people domesticated donkeys and sorghum, and figured out how to incubate chicken eggs. They exported high quality iron ore, dried fish, hardwoods, acacia gum, copper, and gold to India and Iran.
Finally, there are a series of fun activities to encourage active learning. Most of these require little or no special materials. Some are intended to be done in groups, and others can be done alone.
