On the Count of One: The Art, Craft, and Science of Teaching Modern Dance Book

I was quite lost while reading the first thirty or so pages of this history. I was expecting a more chronologically linear history of Africa, but in the preface Cheikh Anta Diop writes:

'This book is not properly speaking a book of history; but it is an auxiliary tool indispensable to the historian. It indeed affords him a scientific understanding of all the historical facts hitherto unexplained. In that sense, it is a study in African historical sociology.'

I did come to really enjoy this book. It's a patchwork of information on pre-colonial Africa, the history and societal structures. Diop directs the reader's attention throughout the book mainly to cultures and old empires of West Africa chiefly Songhai, Ghana, Mali, and Cayor. He compares the lives of the masses of African people and the nobility with that of those in Europe at similar time periods. West Africa after the coming of Islam is talked about extensively and how the religion often blended in well with local beliefs. He ends the book discussing the origins and similarities of names in West Africa to many found in the Nile Basin going back to pharaonic times. Much of the information that Diop presents comes from earlier sources such as the Tarikh es Sudan, a chronicle written in Arabic in the 17th century.

Comparing this book to others I've started reading in the last couple of years about African history, I'd say once past about page 36 Pre-colonial Black Africa is another very good introductory book for those starting to learn about Africa south of the Sahara.