Kingdom on Mount Cameroon: Studies in the History of the Cameroon Coast 1500-1970 (1) (Cameroon Studies, 1) - Hardcover

"... it is worth saluting Berghahn, the publisher that produces the Cameroon Studies series. This undertaking, which now runs to five volumes (with more on the way) is a wonderful resource for English-speaking students of Cameroonian history. Not only are these books well produced with plentiful illustrations, but they are also reasonably priced. They will form some of the canonical texts for Camerooon studies for years to come, and Cameroonists are very lucky to have such a supportive publisher... Cameroonists now have a whole group of newly available primary sources, elegantly set in context and ready for interpretation." African Affairs "... collected in a single volume, [these papers] become a rich case study of an African people's relations with various European agents over more than four centuries." Choice "... a true treasure... challenging example of how history and anthropology can be combined in practice... such a combination can offer a deeper understanding of present-day issues and tensions." Africa

The Bakweri people of Mount Cameroon, an active volcano on the coast of West Africa a few degrees north of the equator, have had a varied and at times exciting history which has brought them into contact, not only with other West African peoples, but with merchants, missionaries, soldiers and administrators from Portugal, Holland, England, Jamaica, Sweden, Germany and more recently France. Edwin Ardener, the distinguished social anthropologist who spoke their language, wrote a number of studies on the history and culture of the Bakweri Kingdom. Some of the unpublished writings, and some of the published but now out of print materials are here brought together for the first time. The book covers the early contacts with the Portuguese and Dutch from the sixteenth century, the arrival of the missionaries in the nineteenth century, the dramatic defeat of the first German punitive expedition, the subsequent establishment by the Germans of the plantation system, and the British Trusteeship period until independence in 1961 as part of the Federal Republic of Cameroon.