Product Description: How do we come to know the world around us? What about worlds apart from our own—outer space, distant cultures, or even long-past eras of history? Engaging Smithsonian Objects through Science, History, and the Arts explores these questions and suggests an answer: we come to know our world and worlds apart through the objects that represent them...read more

Product Description: Horses are very rare in Africa. The few to be found west of Sudan, from the lands of the Sahara and Sahel down to the fringes of the tropical forests, belong to the king, the chief warrior and to notable persons. Due to the dense humidity of the tropical rainforest and the deadly tsetse fly, only restricted numbers of horses survive...read more

Product Description: "African Material Culture" unites fourteen interdisciplinary essays that open new perspectives for understanding African societies and cultures through the contextualized study of objects. Research by an international group of scholars, including anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, historians, and linguists treats everything from the production of material objects to the meaning of sticks, masquerades, household tools, clothing, and the television set in the contemporary repertoire of African material culture...read more

Product Description: Arnoldi (associate curator of African Ethnology and Art, Smithsonian Institution) weaves a vivid account of a West African theater tradition from the perspectives of the performers, the audiences, and the local youth associations who make elaborate puppet masquerades and sculpted masks...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This volume explores the cultural history and lore of African headwear - from spectacular hats for special events to informal everyday examples - and the vital role such headwear plays in reinforcing societal norms, announcing important rituals, recalling historical events, and celebrating an individual's achievements...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)