Covering a vital period in the history and development of East Africa, R. W. Beachey's comprehensive narrative history of this vast region explores the diverse cultural influences of the Arab peoples who traded with East Africa and settled there; the Portuguese who arrived from the late fifteenth century onwards and the first wave of settlers from the Indian subcontinent who arrived in the nineteenth century.

Focusing in particular on the emergence of the slave trade and the subsequent anti-slave trade campaigns, the book is based on contemporary and little-known sources. Beachey shows how rivalries between Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and America were played out in this region before the British colonial period.

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The emphasis of Beachey's book is part-diplomatic and international history, part-exploration and colonial history, and focuses on the early industrial and infrastructural development of the region, and the beginnings of white settlement in Kenya. The book is based on Foreign Office archives, parliamentary papers, and much use is made of the (now inaccessible) Zanzibar archives.

The result of many years' research, this narrative history spanning a long period of East Africa's past, will become an important reference for all students of African and colonial history.