If one were to populate a map of Africa using only the books, articles, and exhibition catalogs written about the continent's art and architecture, the resulting document would little resemble the land mass we know today. While the western and central portions of the continent would be remarkably detailed, the north and south would be littered with holes. And in the east—well, in the east, there would be almost nothing except a note: “Here be dragons.” Enter Gary Van Wyk and his magisterial edited volume Shangaa: Art of Tanzania. Published in 2013 alongside an eponymous exhibition, the collection features ten chapters, seven shorter essays, and over three hundred breathtaking illustrations (most in color), all of which do much to combat the “astounding … notion that Tanzania is poor in art” (p. 25). Indeed, as Van Wyk spells out in his introduction, the alleged dearth of artistry in Tanzania has more...

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