Drawing on many years of African experience, John Reader has written a masterpiece -- a book of startling grandeur and scope that creates a great panorama of African history, from the primeval cataclysms that formed the continent to the civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Great Zimbabwe to the civil war and genocide that mark it today.<P>The rise and fall of remarkable civilizations, the changing patterns of life over many millennia, the devastating recent impact of European settlers and the reemergence of independent nations are all aspects of the extraordinary biography of this fascinating continent.<P>Beautifully illustrated with many of the author's own photographs, "Africa" conveys the staggering diversity of human experience on the continent -- from the great inland estuaries of the Niger to the rain forests of the Equator, from the deserts of the North to the high veld of the South.