[.ca] Africa (ISBN 0816051518)

From Amazon.com:
The African continent is huge and varied, so much so that to compress its history and ethnography into a single volume seems an impossibly daunting task. Recognizing this, African historian Jocelyn Murray and 37 specialist contributors nonetheless do a fine job in this richly illustrated atlas of outlining the sweep of hundreds of thousands of years of human activity on the continent. Their narrative incorporates recent scholarship on the emergence of humankind in eastern Africa, an evolutionary tale that can now be traced to 4.5 million years before the present; the history of the great states of prehistory, among them the Asante, Benin, Great Zimbabwe, and Xhosa empires; and the complex pattern of cultural development across the continent. Along the way Murray and company look at such matters as religion, traditional healing, arts and crafts, music, dance, vernacular architecture, and politics. They also consider matters that are of pressing importance to Africa's future, among them resource use and conservation, environmental preservation, economic development, and urbanization. The book includes a nation-by-nation geographical almanac and gazetteer that, while certain to require updating soon, stand as highly useful references for students. The well- annotated maps are especially valuable. --Gregory McNamee

Cultural Atlas of Africa:
This book is well written and explaining about whole African continent from emergence of man in Africa, its language family, religion to art with lots of pictures. It gives you a good idea what is like as a whole. Information on each country, however, written in the latter half, is a little too brief. It only explains history and general information such as population and capital, etc. If it could provide us more information on cultural differences in each country in order to let us know how they live, for example, their diet, housing conditions, education systems, fashions, festivals, it would be much more informational and vivid. This is a good atlas to provide an overall picture of the continent Africa.