Includes index.

This pioneering book was one of the first to place the history of east Africa within the context of the environment. It has been used continously for student teaching. It is now reissued with an introduction placing it within the debate which had developed on the subject;there is also an updated bibliography. The book puts people at the centre of events. It thus serves as a modification to nationalist history with its empasis on leaders. It presents environmental factors which had been underestimated; for instance, it points to the critical importance of the rinderpest outbreak. Helge Kjekshus provides evidence to suggest that the nineteenth century was a period of relative prosperity with well developed trade. He questions the view that warfare was pervasive and that the slave trade led to depopulation.He points to a balance of the work of Helge Kjekshus.