Newman, James L. : Syracuse University Main Campus

James L. Newman is professor of geography at Syracuse University.

"A fine book and an original synthesis. Readers will gain a deeper appreciation of both the continuity and the far-reaching changes that have contributed to the human geography and 'peopling' of precolonial Africa."

--Charles Good, Virginia Polytechnic and State University

"This scholarly discussion will appeal to any who want a different interpretation of African migration patterns."

--Bookwatch

"Historical geography at its best! James Newman's superb synthesis of Africa's formative millennia is proof that the geographic perspective yields uncommonly productive insights. The author provides chronological order and spatial context to explain how Africa's peoples came to live where they do."

--H.J. de Blij, Ph.D., Geography editor for ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" and Scholar- Scientist at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

"This volume . . . offers a clear challenge to our complacent assumption that there is a coherence somewhere in the disheveled haystack of modern higher education."

--Don Gifford, Cultural Polemics

"The Peopling of Africa represents praiseworthy scholarship. It is carefully synthesized and well-written."

--Philip C. Howze, MultiCultural Review

"It is a well-written and beautiful book, illustrated throughout with maps and photographs, and a useful bibliographical essay. The achievement of presenting the diversity and vibrancy of apart from many previous interpretations of these challenging and controversial issues. . . . Readers of this journal will find this book greatly increases our understanding of the processes and patterns of the peopling of Africa and the diverse and dynamic natures of populations."

--Tamasine Robins, African Affairs

"If you either claim or aspire to be an African scholar, you should read this book. Newman clearly fills a niche in African scholarship by focusing on the largely ignored period of African history before Europeans colonized the continent. While anthropologists and historians have brought together most of the pieces of the puzzle of African humanity, this work by a geographer puts them in a new context which illuminates "peopling" and helps explain it in rich complexity. . . . Clearly Newman has provided Africanists with a major service by presenting an interdisciplinary survey of Africa and Africans "before the Europeans wrote the rules of the game." The scholarship involved in this effort is commendable. This rich book should be required reading for Africanists in general."

--Gary L. Gaile, Journal of Anthropological Research

"At the very least, this book reveals the tremendous richness, complexity and dynamism of Africa's cultural geography in the precolonial period. But more than this, James Newman has skillfully sifted through archaeological, ethnographic, linguistic and historical evidence to produce an impressive and sensitive 'essay' on a vast topic."

--Tony Binns, Times Higher Education supplement

"There is much to praise in The Peopling of Africa besides the author's thorough regional coverage. Beautiful maps populate each chapter. They represent clearly Newman's narrative devices of migration, trade, and the growth of political scale. He uses historical linguistic evidence to tell a story of the spread of language communities during the first millennium A.D. This may stand as the book's most important achievement because too many of the other master narrators of early Africa avoid these ten centuries. . . . The clarity of his arguments will render the book agreeable to undergraduates."

--David Schoenbrun, African History

"An excellent guide on African cultures evolves with an unusual geographic twist."

--Midwest Book Review

Yale University Press Web Site, April, 2001

Tracing the peopling of Africa from its origins over four million years ago to the onset of the colonial era in the late nineteenth century, James Newman discusses the roles played by genetic background, language, occupation, and religion as well as by differing natural and human environmental circumstances.