Africa: A Biography of the Continent - Softcover

Drawing on many years of African experience, John Reader has written a book of startling grandeur and scope that recreates the great panorama of African history, from the primeval cataclysms that formed the continent to the political upheavals facing much of the continent today. Reader tells the extraordinary story of humankind's adaptation to the ferocious obstacles of forest, river and desert, and to the threat of debilitating parasites, bacteria and viruses unmatched elsewhere in the world. He also shows how the world's richest assortment of animals and plants has helped - or hindered - human progress in Africa.

John Reader is a writer and photojournalist with more than forty years professional experience, much of it in Africa. Born in London in 1937, he currently holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at University CollegeLondon, and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Geographical Society. He is the author of Pyramids of Life, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man; Kilimanjaro; The Rise of Life; Mount Kenya and Man on Earth.