A History of the East African Coast

The tropical coast of East Africa stretches from Somalia in the north, through Kenya and Tanzania, to Mozambique in the south and to the offshore islands of the Indian Ocean, the queen of them all, Zanzibar. The people of the coast, the Swahili, have experienced a rich and tumultuous history, coloured by political intrigue, international commerce, warfare, invasion, scandal and terrorism. Drawing on archaeology, the civic chronicles of the Swahili towns and accounts of the coast written by explorers, traders, missionaries and colonialists from as far afield as Italy, China and Britain, this book tells the story of the East African coast from ancient times to today. Moving from the slave markets and clove plantations of Zanzibar, to the stone towns and sand dunes of the Lamu Archipelago, to the fight for control of Mombasa and its great bastion, Fort Jesus, it tells the stories of Zanzibari sultans, Swahili merchants, Portuguese explorers and Christian missionaries in an epic history stretching back more than two thousand years.