Konadu, Kwasi and Clifford C. Campbell, eds.: "The Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics."(Book review)

• Author: Nti, Kwaku

Konadu, Kwasi and Clifford C. Campbell, eds. The Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Kwasi Konadu and Clifford Campbell have compiled an intriguingly diverse range of sources in this multidisciplinary narrative of history, culture, and politics of Ghana. The book covers the peopling of the land, early state formation, contact with Europeans, colonial experiences, and the making of the modern nation. This unique packaging makes The Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics a signal example out of all the scholarly attempts to capture all aspects of Ghana's milestones. The book is divided into six major parts, each of which is devoted to interesting overarching themes that are discussed from different perspectives to enhance understanding and proffer a profound appreciation of the complex nature of Ghana's historical, cultural, and political account.

This work has a good number of strengths, which enhance its uniqueness. The several Akan traditions of migration [origin from the sky, caves, and holes], which have often been dismissed as mythical or at best mere cosmological blueprints for understanding the indigenous world, are rationalized and authenticated as formidable claims to autochthony with substantial archaeological evidence in the excerpt from the work of Kwaku Effah Gyamfi...