David W. Phillipson
Auteur de Empires of the Nile
A propos de l'auteur
David W. Phillipson is the former Director, Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Professor of African Archaeology, Cambridge University. He is currently and Emeritus Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and an Hon. Professor, University College, London.
Œuvres de David W. Phillipson
Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the northern Horn, 1000 BC - AD 1300 (Eastern Africa Series) (2012) 24 exemplaires
National Monuments Of Zambia 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Sexe
- male
Membres
Critiques
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 11
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 247
- Popularité
- #92,310
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 2
- ISBN
- 29
Cons: only a few black and white photo, some illustrations reproduced from earlier works, very dense
The book consists of 18 chapters starting with an introduction followed by 3 parts: 1) Before Aksum (2 chapters), 2) The Kingdom of Aksum (13 chapters), After Aksum (1 chapter) and an epilogue. There’s also an extensive bibliography.
In the introduction the author mentions that he wrote the book to be both a scholarly work and something accessible to every day Ethiopians wishing to know more about their past. He definitely achieved the former, while I’m not Ethiopian I had trouble with several sections that were quite dense. There’s a fair bit of repetition in sections where the author refers you to another chapter where a particular issue is dealt with in greater detail.
There are only a handful of photos, all of which are black and white. The author also used illustrations of floor plan/layouts, etc. from older books.
I was disappointed that the Zagwe dynasty only rated one chapter but the book did make me want to read what happens after 1300 when the Solomonic dynasty took over.
While I came away knowing more about the Aksumites, the writing is so dense that I can’t really recommend this book for casual readers interested in Ethiopian history.… (plus d'informations)