Stanley Burstein has researched, compiled, and translated with commentary the most significant Greek and Roman sources concerning black Africa. The result is this work about the people of the southern part of the Nile Valley, the gold mines of Nubia, the Hellenistic city of Meroe, capital of the Ethiopian Empire of Kush with its own highly developed culture (300 BC to 300 AD). Burstein opens the volume with a brief survey of the two kingdoms of Kush and Axum. With introductions and notes he then presents the ancient literary and epigraphical testimony for this region.