A review by pileofmonsters
African History: Explore The Amazing Timeline of The World’s Richest Continent by History Brought Alive

adventurous informative reflective relaxing fast-paced

3.5

This isn't a usual history book. It was dense with folktales and stories of kingdoms and tribes across African history. If you're looking for a traditional history book with chapters spanning specific time periods and providing historical accounts, this is not for you.

You'll want to read it with a map nearby unless you've got all of Africa memorized already; I started without one and I was lost but the threads came together better if I took a moment to identify the context. The book brings you from the beginning and although it doesn't quite end at modern times, you'll start to understand why things are the way they are in Africa, which is so different from the Western/American experience. (This makes me interested in finding another book to bridge the gap so I can make those ties more precisely.) 

This book will destroy all your assumptions of early humans or what life was like for them. They had political systems, social expectations, and norms, and it's actually not true that all men were hunters and all women gatherers! It's barely true that ancient Africans had kings (though they may have had the title, oftenthe position was similar to a chieftain on a counsel of many). Instead of a universal setting, each group had its own beliefs. Humans are always searching for the best way but there has never been a confirmed one. From our roots, we do what we can until another group conquers us and takes over with their beliefs and ways of living.

Some stories that stood out:
- we lost our chance of immortality due to a slow lizard and a god's impatience with it
- King Zwide running from every fight as soon as he loses the advantage 
- A flock of birds who helped a turtle fly so he could join them at a celebration banquet where he then ate all the food and the birds abandoned him there. He had to jump and his shell broke, and now turtles are a reminder of the consequences of selfishness.
- Stories surrounding big cats and cubs that have a lesson to appreciate your environment and live off your own skill (not others). One of the cub stories seemed to not have a moral at all. Eat your friend's cubs and blame it on another animal so they get murdered instead!
- The idea of humans originating from a reincarnated being that went from a plant to rodents and grew through the animal kingdom until they finally came back as human. Interestingly literal take on the idea of evolution before evolution was an idea.
- Africans getting a gun from a white dude and then using it to conquer other Africans. 
- An incredible amount of creation stories, many similar but all taking a unique path to how humans got here.
- all people, from the beginning of time, engage in creative activities, music, dance, and collaborative projects.