Basil Davidson gives insights into the depth and sophistication of African cultural and social history in a way that is intelligible and accessible to the lay-reader. North America: Ohio U Press

"Both learned and readable, it forms a valuable contribution to a better composite understanding of modern African problems...THE ECONOMIST (Basil Davidson) is able to set out a splendidly wide-ranging view of African cultural history with admirable clarity and his special gift for synthesis. THE SUNDAY TIMES ...a unique synthesis: the first attempt, in a sense, at a general religious and social history of Africa. The author's talent for making African society intelligible to the lay reader is indisputable... LIBRARY JOURNAL IN BRITAIN Davidson is the often-overlooked fourth man in the group that includes his contemporaries and fellow historians, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson (a close friend of Davidson for many years). These men's committed, left-wing approach to writing history opened up the stuffy, chauvinist world of British professional historians and reached a popular audience far beyond academia. But whereas the others wrote about the British or European past, Davidson studied Africa and put his political energies into the struggle for Third World liberation. - Michael Bygrave in THE GUARDIAN "