Drawing on written and oral testimony, Donald Wright locates a tiny place in Africa's smallest country within the history of the modern world. We see how global events have affected people's lives over the past eight centuries in Niumi, a little-known territory located on the north bank of the Gambia River in West Africa.

This title in the Culture and Customs of Africa series examines the traditions and customs of contemporary Gambia, a geographically tiny nation in the vast landscape of Africa that is home to a large number of various ethnic groups, each with its own distinctive way of life. It is a country that has been largely unknown in Western culture, with the exception of Alex Haley's book Roots and subsequent TV series, which highlights Gambia's historic significance in the slave trade.This book illuminates Gambian religion and worldview; literature and media; arts and architecture/housing; gender roles, marriage, and family; social customs, traditional dress, cuisine, and lifestyle; and music and dance. The author has successfully encapsulated both long-ago history and contemporary Gambia to provide students with a complete look at life in Gambia today. Information on past traditions and historic events is discussed in the context of how they pertain to life today and their influence on the constant evolution of Gambian life and culture.

The author looks at The Gambia and its people and how this African country has been able to achieve cultural integration on a national level. He also provides a comprehensive picture of the country's nation identity which is a fusion of the multiple identities of the various ethno-cultural groups which collectively constitute the Gambian nation. The work is a study of ethnic cultures and identities in the Gambian context whose relevance is continental in scope. Ethnicity is the primary identity in most African countries. It transcends national identity. Understanding its role in the lives of most Africans also helps us to understand African countries with all their complexities which collectively define the continent. In spite of its ethnic and cultural diversity, The Gambia is one of the most united countries in Africa. It's also one of the most peaceful, enjoying harmonious relations among its various ethnic groups unlike many African countries where instability and civil strife caused by ethnic rivalries - fuelled by unscrupulous politicians - is the defining feature of national life. The ability of the various ethnic groups in The Gambia to interact harmoniously has led to cultural integration on a scale unheard of in most African countries. While it's true that different tribal cultures do exist in The Gambia, it's equally true that there also exists a national culture which unites the country's various ethnic groups into a cohesive whole transcending ethno-regional loyalties. As an ethnically diverse nation, The Gambia is a microcosm of Africa: a continent whose countries are characterised by ethnic and cultural diversity where rivalries along tribal and regional lines are the norm rather than the exception. But The Gambia also is a good example of what many African countries have yet to be: united, with a solid national identity that has not been fractured or fragmented by ethnic conflicts. Cultural integration on a national scale remains an elusive goal in most African countries. But if there are a few countries on the continent which have achieved cultural integration, The Gambia is one them. It has, in fact, even achieved cultural fusion in some respects as we learn from this work which focuses on Africa's smallest country and its people. The work is intended to be a general introduction and may help members of the general public learn some basic facts about The Gambia which, because of its strategic location and other attributes, has earned distinction as a gateway to West Africa. People going to The Gambia may find this work to be useful. Students in various academic fields may also benefit from the interdisciplinary approach taken by the author in his study of this African country. It's comprehensive enough as an introductory work on the people of The Gambia and their ethnic identities and cultures.

Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the opposite reason—to have as many children as possible.Using ethnographic and demographic data from a three-year study in rural Gambia, Contingent Lives explains this seemingly counterintuitive fact by juxtaposing two very different understandings of the life course: one is a linear, Western model that equates aging and the ability to reproduce with the passage of time, the other a Gambian model that views aging as contingent on the cumulative physical, social, and spiritual hardships of personal history, especially obstetric trauma. Viewing each of these two models from the perspective of the other, Caroline Bledsoe produces fresh understandings of the classical anthropological subjects of reproduction, time, and aging as culturally shaped within women's conjugal lives. Her insights will be welcomed by scholars of anthropology and demography as well as by those working in public health, development studies, gerontology, and the history of medicine.

The Gambia is a popular tourist destination and provides many birders with their first taste of tropical African birds. This small and accessible country shelters a great many migrants from the Western Palearctic from September to April, as well as having a significant list of resident West African birds. This is the first field guide to the birds of The Gambia, and it also covers the larger territory of Senegal, which almost entirely surrounds the country.The book offers the following features: -- the text covers every species on the Senegambian list -- over 660 species in total; -- the 4-8 color plates depict 570 species, and almost all the birds recorded in The Gambia and southern Senegal are illustrated; -- species accounts describe identification (including comparison with similar species), habits, voice, status and distribution, and breeding.

The jali--a member of a hereditary group of Mandinka professional performers--is a charismatic but contradictory figure. He is at once the repository of his people's history, the voice of contemporary political authority, the inspiration for African American dreams of an African homeland, and the chief entertainment for the burgeoning transnational tourist industry. Numerous journalists, scholars, politicians, and culture aficionados have tried to pin him down. This book shows how the jali's talents at performance make him a genius at representation--the ideal figure to tell us about the "Africa" that the world imagines, which is always a thing of illusion, magic, and contradiction.Africa often enters the global imagination through news accounts of ethnic war, famine, and despotic political regimes. Those interested in countering such dystopic images--be they cultural nationalists in the African diaspora or connoisseurs of "global culture"--often found their representations of an emancipatory Africa on an enthusiasm for West African popular culture and performance arts. Based on extensive field research in The Gambia and focusing on the figure of the jali, Performing Africa interrogates these representations together with their cultural and political implications. It explores how Africa is produced, circulated, and consumed through performance and how encounters through performance create the place of Africa in the world. Innovative and discerning, Performing Africa is a provocative contribution to debates over cultural nationalism and the construction of identity and history in Africa and elsewhere.

This biography of Edward the Confessor, first published in 1970, aims to rescue the image of the King from what the author sees as myth and bogus scholarship. Disentangling fact from legend, the text recreates the final years of the Anglo-Danish monarchy and examines England before the Normans.

The Gambia achieved its independence from Great Britain on February 18, 1965 and became mainland Africa's smallest state. Despite its small size and population, it was able to establish itself as a functioning parliamentary democracy for nearly 30 years, avoiding the common fate of other African countries, which soon fell under authoritarian single-party rule or experienced military coups. In addition, its political stability and modest economic success enabled it to avoid remaining under British domination or being absorbed by its larger French-speaking neighbor, Senegal, as anticipated by many at the country's birth. It was also able to defeat an attempted coup d'état in July 1981. However, just as other African states were returning to democratic government, Gambian democracy finally succumbed to a military coup on July 22, 1994. Since then, the restoration of democracy has remained incomplete and disputed, as does the military successor government's attempts to meet the country's economic and social needs.The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of The Gambia—through its chronology, introductory essay, appendixes, map, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, institutions, and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects—provides an important reference on this burgeoning African country.