I admit that my knowledge of African history was meagre (and probably still is), but I have a much broader perspective now. All that history and most, if not all, other continents and countries are not even interested. It's a shame. I was especially excited to learn about the strong African women and about the pre-colonial era. In the beginning, I was a bit confused by the structure of the book. Zeinab Badawi slips in passages during which she describes her impression of African scholars, monuments or locations, and I thought they didn't belong in such a book, but to be honest: It absolutely does. The book is not trying to be a dry chronic, instead it tries to evoke images, a sense of culture, pride, dignity and an eye for African achievements to battle the stereotypes "we europeans" have of Africans and their culture. It worked for my part and while I still feel a bit ignorant about some facts (goddamit yes, Egypt is on the African continent), I now want to know even more.