Africa 1900: A Continent Emerges (A History in Documentary Photographs)

A century ago, Africa was aptly named \"The Dark Continent\" by Europeans. The successors of the ancient civilizations on the Mediterranean that had traded and fought with Europe for thousands of years were a part of our cultural sphere, and, in the South, the Cape Colonies had grown in the 16th through 18th centuries. The rest of Africa, apart from a few ports and sections of coast, remained an unknown land, a continent largely unmapped. The photographs in this volume cover a period of discovery and exploration in the heart of the continent and of the European colonies' expansion and conflict in the South. We see tribal civilizations as they were first encountered - as yet unaffected by Europeans. We also see the contributions of European technology and society - the culture built dams and railways but also brought the gattling gun.