This book portrays the Swahili, a major civilization of the Eastern African coast through several papers from leading scholars on the subject matter. Very informative overview portraying who the Swahili are, a response which might be more complicated than it first seems to respond and how they profoundly shaped world history ending with the life of the Swahili today in post-colonial East Africa. For a laymen, it might be written in a relative complicated matter, but it’s really enriching to read about a subject which is usually ignored and not portrayed at all on TV via documentaries or other media.