AFRICA, a biography of a continent

802pp., maps, paperback, Reprint, London, (1997) 1998

British writer and photojournalist John Reader on Africa's geology and evolution, its landforms and environments, its peoples and their ways of life, the legacies of slavery and colonialism, and recent political developments.

"Massive and magnificent ... The book's real strength is in the mind-expanding links it forges between the natural and, as we perceive it, the human world." Giles Foden, Evening Standard

"His account combines the best of academic research with a sense of Africa which is vivid and understandable." Economist

"A rich, coherent and highly readable account of Africa ... This is geography, history, anthropology and ecology on a grand scale." Richard Dowden, Literary Review

John Reader holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at UCL and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Geographic Society. His books include Mount Kenya (1989), Man on Earth (1989), Kilimanjaro (1982), Missing Links: The hunt for earliest man (1981) and Pyramids of Life, an investigation of nature's fearful symmetry (1977). He lives in London.