'The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself' and Other Writings, by Otumfuo, Nana Agyeman Prempeh I

EMMANUEL AKYEAMPONG, A. ADU BOAHEN, NANCY LAWLER, T. C. MCCASKIE and IVORWILKS (eds), 'The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself and Other Writings, by Otumfuo, Nana Agyeman Prempeh I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, for the British Academy (hb £30.00, US$60.00 - O 19 726261 9). 2003, 224 pp.

Africanist scholars are deeply indebted to the distinguished group of editors and the British Academy for making accessible a rare internal account of early Asante history. The History of Ashanti Kings (HAK) was dictated by the Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh (r. 1888-1931) to his thirteen-year-old son, Frederick Prempeh, in 1907, when the king, his closest family and a number of senior Asante officials were living in exile on the Seychelles Islands. Fearful that the group might never return to their homeland and that 'their names would be lost' forever, the Asantehene and others prepared a written text, a 'synoptic history' as the editors call it, outlining the origins of the ruling family of Asante, establishing an extensive royal genealogy, and chronicling the exploits of its earliest kings through the reign of the...