The Yoruba: A New History is the first transdisciplinary study of the two-thousand-year journey of the Yoruba people, from their origins in a small corner of the Niger-Benue Confluence in present-day Nigeria to becoming one of the most populous cultural groups on the African continent. Weaving together archaeology with linguistics, environmental science with oral traditions, and material culture with mythology, Ogundiran examines the local, regional, and even global dimensions of Yoruba history. The Yoruba: A New History offers an intriguing cultural, political, economic, intellectual, and social history from ca. 300 BC to 1840. It accounts for the events, peoples, and practices, as well as the theories of knowledge, ways of being, and social valuations that shaped the Yoruba experience at different junctures of time. The result is a new framework for understanding the Yoruba past and present.

This collection of essays, written during the last couple of decades on Yoruba cultural heritage, brings together a wealth of material on Yoruba history, art, and institutions within a framework of writing on the phenomenon, history and sociology of tradition. The essays demonstrate a strong philosophical context, and new insights into the nature and behavior of the Yoruba tradition. A main theme is that there is no antithesis between tradition and modernity and that to examine how the Yoruba synthesize tradition and modernity is a useful way to understand how their society functions and changes. The author further brings perspectives to current concerns about why there is at present a resurgence of violent ethnic clashes. He reflects on the divisiveness of violent conflicts arising from tribalism and ethnic consciousness, illustrating how these need not be a threat to Nigerian unity, and considers roles of traditional authorities in modern political structures.

First published in 1921, and cited on the Africa's Best 100 Books List, this is a standard work on the history of theYorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate. The first part of the book discusses the people, theircountry and language, religion, government, land law, manners and customs. The second part is divided into four periods, dealing first with mytheological kings and deified heroes; with the growth, prosperity and oppression of the Yoruba people; the time of revolutionary wars and disruption; and, finally, the arrest of disintegration, inter-tribal wars, and the coming of the British. There are two appendices, on dealing with treaties and agreements, the other giving tables of Yoruba kings, rulers, and chiefs. The book also includes an index and map of the Yoruba country.

A rich and accessible account of Yoruba history, society and culture from the pre-colonial period to the present.