Book excerpt: Tracing the origin of the Igbo people back to the Bantu in antiquity, and exploring the etymology of the word Igbo, the author notes that, although the name is not native to the language, the people have always inhabited the same geo-physical environment, held similar worldview and shared, in all its diversity, the same culture. Out of this common ecology and cosmology emerged the Igbo Personality: the egalitarian democrat and collective individualist, Pan-Nigerian in outlook