Games against nature : an eco-cultural history of the Nunu of equatorial Africa / Robert Harms.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harms, Robert, 1946- author.

Series:

Studies in environment and history.

Studies in environment and history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nunu (African people).

Human ecology--Congo (Democratic Republic).

Human ecology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 276 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Africa's equatorial rain forests cover an area roughly the size of continental Western Europe, and yet the history of this area remains largely unexplored. Robert Harms makes an important advance in this book toward recovering that history by telling the story of the Nunu, who live in and around the swampy floodplains of the middle Zaire River. A key element in Nunu history has been the small-scale, short-distance migrations that continually led individuals and groups into new micro-environments. When an increasing population impinged upon the limits of available resources in the late eighteenth century, a crisis characterized by drastic change and incessant conflict ensued. The Nunu abandoned their ancestral estates to take up new forms of competition in river towns, causing a conflict of identity which culminated in civil war in the 1960s.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780511097270

0511097271

9780511584107

0511584105

Publisher Number:

2027/heb02600 hdl