Africa in the Nineteenth Century. By Edgar Sanderson, M.A. (Seeley
and Co.)—This is really a valuable little book, which sum- marises lucidly and in a readable style the action of European Powers in Africa since our first invasion of Egypt and conquest of the Cape. Naturally, the book is written chiefly from a British point of view, and undue prominence is given, for instance, in the history of Algiers to its bombardnient by Lord Exmouth, while the story of the French conquest is scamped. Still, it is a convenient hand- book, and puts together a good deal of information which existed only in scattered volumes. Some attempt, however+, should have been made to write native history as well as European. A sketch is given of the war between Abyssinia and the Dervishes to which Menelek owes his throne, but there is no story told of the reli- gious war between Mandists and Senusaiyehs in the Darfur and Wadai countries. Indeed, there is only the most casual allusion to the spread of Islam in Africa, surely a noticeable feature of the century. Nor has Mr. Sanderson any clear knowledge of the countries in the Central Soudan ; he says, for instance, that the rulers in Bornu are Fulahs, which has not been true for half a century, and he seems to be unaware of the existence of Rabeh, the present ruler of that country. But the book is readable throughout and may be warmly commended to the general reader as perhaps the only history up to date of what Mr. Sanderson calls "the oldest and the newest of the continents."
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