When we think about the continent of Africa images of famine, war and the rhetoric of self appointed white savours telling its peoples how to live spring to mind.
An intelligent antidote to that media-fed diet is collected in this series of films originally seen on BBC is presented by the charming, lucid and very watchable Gus Casey-Hayford.
This is a first time appearance on DVD of these enlightening and very watchable programmes on aspects of that fascinating continent.
Casey-Hayford is a cultural historian by training and as such is well equipped to take us on a journey of discovery back into time with an examination of evidence that the poorest places on earth were once the locations for sophisticated societies and peoples.
Nubia which is located in northern Khartoum was once a busy trading area which declined due to changes in climate and humankind’s reaction to it.
Zimbabwe, currently a basket case once had a gold mining empire which dominated the region.
On seeing this, one yearns to see this beautiful country return to being the “Garden of Africa”.
West Africa has a rich heritage of Benin bronzes.
That is no accident as this film demonstrates in its examination of its fine metal workings.
By far the most intriguing film is that on Ethiopia.
An examination of the evidence suggests that the true homeland of the Jews is in that country and not the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean !
Mankind developed from his ancestors in Africa.
Watching this series will inspire wonder and awe at what the peoples of that continent achieved thousands of years before the Western World self reverentially assumed leadership of the world in power and thinking.
We have a lot to learn from Africa and its peoples.
I would encourage you to begin your learning with this excellent series which was released last week with a running time of around two hundred and seventeen minutes.