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- catalog abstract ""The Swahili of East Africa have a long and distinctive history as a literate, Muslim, urban, and mercantile society. In this book a leading Africanist presents the first full-length anthropological account of the Swahili and offers an original analysis of their little-understood and unusual culture." "Swahili towns, some urban with elegant stone buildings and others more rural with palm-leaf-matting houses, are spread along the thousand-mile East African coast. Because each local community is culturally different from its neighbors, previous historians and anthropologists have viewed the Swahili as a series of isolated and "detribalized" groups. John Middleton argues, on the contrary, that beneath the cultural variation is a single structure, that of a well-defined and complex trading society that has shown little change through the ages. Drawing on his own field research and on earlier writings on the Swahili, Middleton describes this centuries-old mercantile culture--its local and descent groupings, marriage patterns, religion, and values. He traces the history of their colonized past as subjects to Arabs, portuguese, British, and others and shows that, although their economic and political role has continually been a subordinate one, their sense of unique identity enables then to persist as an ongoing civilization."--BOOK JACKET.".
- catalog contributor b3547681.
- catalog coverage "Lamu (Kenya) Commerce.".
- catalog coverage "Lamu (Kenya) Social life and customs.".
- catalog coverage "Zanzibar Commerce.".
- catalog coverage "Zanzibar Social life and customs.".
- catalog created "c1992.".
- catalog date "1992".
- catalog date "c1992.".
- catalog dateCopyrighted "c1992.".
- catalog description ""The Swahili of East Africa have a long and distinctive history as a literate, Muslim, urban, and mercantile society. In this book a leading Africanist presents the first full-length anthropological account of the Swahili and offers an original analysis of their little-understood and unusual culture." "Swahili towns, some urban with elegant stone buildings and others more rural with palm-leaf-matting houses, are spread along the thousand-mile East African coast. Because each local community is culturally different from its neighbors, previous historians and anthropologists have viewed the Swahili as a series of isolated and "detribalized" groups. John Middleton argues, on the contrary, that beneath the cultural variation is a single structure, that of a well-defined and complex trading society that has shown little change through the ages. Drawing on his own field research and on earlier writings on the Swahili, Middleton describes this centuries-old mercantile culture--its local and descent groupings, marriage patterns, religion, and values. He traces the history of their colonized past as subjects to Arabs, portuguese, British, and others and shows that, although their economic and political role has continually been a subordinate one, their sense of unique identity enables then to persist as an ongoing civilization."--BOOK JACKET.".
- catalog description "Includes bibliographical references and index.".
- catalog description "The Swahili people and their coast -- The merchants and the predators -- Towns -- Kinship, descent, and family -- Perpetuation and alliance -- Transformation of the person -- Power, ritual, and knowledge -- Civilization and identity.".
- catalog extent "xii, 254 p. :".
- catalog identifier "0300052197".
- catalog issued "1992".
- catalog issued "c1992.".
- catalog language "eng".
- catalog publisher "New Haven : Yale University Press,".
- catalog spatial "Lamu (Kenya) Commerce.".
- catalog spatial "Lamu (Kenya) Social life and customs.".
- catalog spatial "Zanzibar Commerce.".
- catalog spatial "Zanzibar Social life and customs.".
- catalog subject "306/.089/96392 20".
- catalog subject "DT429.5.S94 M54 1992".
- catalog subject "Swahili-speaking peoples Commerce.".
- catalog subject "Swahili-speaking peoples Kinship.".
- catalog subject "Swahili-speaking peoples Social life and customs.".
- catalog tableOfContents "The Swahili people and their coast -- The merchants and the predators -- Towns -- Kinship, descent, and family -- Perpetuation and alliance -- Transformation of the person -- Power, ritual, and knowledge -- Civilization and identity.".
- catalog title "The world of the Swahili : an African mercantile civilization / John Middleton.".
- catalog type "text".