Ancient African Religions

This ambitious, continent-wide investigation into African religious history from the beginning of time is written in an accessible and engaging manner and can be enjoyed by the novice and expert alike. Baum's dataset and methodology are remarkable. He draws on a treasure-trove of sources-archaeological, linguistic, and oral, tree rings, grave sites, rock art, rituals--to put to rest cynical views about the persistence of indigenous African religions following the institution of 'a hegemonic Christian tradition.' Ancient African Religions is the first of its kind.

Auteur
Robert M. Baum chairs the Department of African and African American Studies and is a professor in that department and the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College. He is the author of two other books, the award-winning Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religon and Society in Precolonial Senegambia and West Africa's Women of God: Alinesitoue and the Diola Prophetic Tradition. He served as Executive Editor of the Journal of Religion in Africa for six years.

Résumé
This book examines the history of religions in Africa from the burial practices of the earliest humans to the rise of centralized theocratic kingdoms like ancient Egypt up to the rise of Islam in the Seventh Century.