The Swahili Coast

First published in 1971, The Swahili Coast deals with a sixty-year period in which Arabs from Oman in Arabia extended their influence over the East African coast from Mogadishu in the north to Cape Delgado in the South. This region had a culture and a way of life quite distinct from that of the interior and had always been an area of great maritime activity. For hundreds of years, Arabs had come down on the monsoon winds to trade there, and for two centuries, the Portuguese had controlled the re