PRECOLONIAL AKAN TOWNS Building Technology and Settlement Planning in a West African Civilization: Precolonial Akan Cities and Towns. By TARIKHU FARRAR. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. Pp. xi + 217. No price given (ISBN 0-7734-2262-5).

Abstract

Judging from the recent conference on Africa's Urban Past held at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, historians are increasingly – if somewhat belatedly – joining their colleagues in the social sciences in recognizing the continent's towns and cities as fruitful fields of research. While urban historians of North America and Europe have long regarded the built environment as a valuable source, the form of towns is only beginning to emerge as a topic of serious consideration in the African context. It is gratifying to note, therefore, that a number of contributors to the SOAS conference chose to focus on the ways in which both indigenous concepts of settlement and the physical organization of space have shaped Africa's urban centres as arenas of social, political and economic conflict. It is with these issues in mind that the reviewer approached this study of the architectural history of a people with a long tradition of urbanism and a highly nuanced terminology of settlement, the Akan of southern Ghana.