Ancient African Town

A tour of Benin City, a West African town and capital of the Edo Empire, located in present-day Nigeria.

Suitable for National Curriculum Key Stage 2, a practical guide in the METROPOLIS series which explores what life was like in an ancient African town. Includes information on where to stay, what to eat and drink, local customs and useful phrases. With colour illustrations (many of which are in cross section) by Gerald Wood.

A tour of Benin City, a West African town and capital of the Edo Empire, located in present-day Nigeria.

Take an incredible tour through an African Town, exploring its relevance to the people who built it and the lives that they lead. Stunning cut-away illustrations and a clear, concise writing style help lead the reader through the often complex social and historical context

This book is comprehensive both in terms of time coverage, from before the Pharaohs to the present moment and in that it tries to consider cities from the entire continent, not just Sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from factual information and rich description material culled from many sources, it looks at many issues from why urban life emerged in the first place to how present-day African cities cope in difficult times. Instead of seeing towns and cities as somehow extraneous to the real Africa, it views them as an inherent part of developing Africa, indigenous, colonial, and post-colonial and emphasizes the extent to which the future of African society and African culture will likely be played out mostly in cities. The book is written to appeal to students of history but equally to geographers, planners, sociologists and development specialists interested in urban problems.

Publisher description

Cities have existed in sub-Saharan Africa since antiquity. But only now are historians and archaeologists rediscovering their rich heritage: the ancient ruins of Great Zimbabwe and Congo, the harbor cities at the Indian Ocean, the capitals of the Bantu Kingdoms, the Atlantic cities from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and the urban revolutions in the 19th century. Mercantile cities opened Africa to the world, Islamic cities became centers of scholarship and the trans-Saharan trade, Creole cities appeared after the first contact with Europeans, and Bantu cities of the hinterland reacted against them. The author has gone through vast numbers of archival records and conducted independent field research to analyze and describe the rich history of African cities even long before imperial colonization began, and she continues her story until the time of urban reorganization during industrialization. The result is a colorful panorama of urban lifestyles including unique examples of architecture, and lasting traditions of ethnic, cultural, religious, and commercial forms of co-existence.