The East African Coast

The history of the Swahili coast is laced with political intrigue, scandal, international commerce, war, invasion and terrorism. Stretching from Somalia in the north, through Kenya and Tanzania, to Mozambique in the south and to the great offshore islands of the coast, it is home to the Swahili people, a unique blend of Arab, African and Persian, whose story stretches back more than two thousand years and which forms the backdrop to one of Africa's oldest and greatest civilizations. Drawing on archaeology, the civic chronicles of the Swahili towns and accounts of the coast written by explorers, traders and colonialists from as far afield as Italy, China and Britain, this illustrated book tells the story of the Swahili coast. Moving from the slave markets and clove plantations of Zanzibar, to the stone towns of the Lamu Archipelago, to the fight for control of Mombasa and its great bastion, Fort Jesus, it tells the stories of Zanzibar sultans, Swahili traders, Portuguese conquerors and Christian missionaries.

This book is a compilation of documents throughout history which discuss the East African Coast. Authors of these documents include figures such as Claudius Ptolemy, Marco Polo, and Vasco da Gama.

This new monograph serves as an authoritative introduction to an unusual people of eastern Africa known as Swahili. Middleton, who has known these people for a half a century, describes their highly stratified, merchant society and civilization, documenting their importance both for anthropologists and for others interested in Africa. Swahili continue today their centuries-old role as merchants in long-distance international trade, a role that has led them to form a society very distinct from any other in Africa. Middletons brief, personal treatment discusses Swahili recorded history as an integral part of their rich tradition and civilization. He clears up past confusions and mistaken assumptions without trying to define a single Swahili identity. His lucid approach unravels contradictions about Swahili being merchants and yet fishermen, who live in both cities as well as small villages, and who reckon various kinds of kinship and marriage. Swahili are often considered by non-Swahili as being both Africans and Arabs, but Middleton shows that they remain African despite having long adopted Islam and many aspects of Arab and Asian cultures.

Archaeological and historical study for the general reader.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)