Short description
Intended for those interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this work looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. It illustrates key themes in modern thinking about Africa's history with a range of historical examples.
Long description
Essential reading for anyone interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this "Very Short Introduction" looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. Key themes in current thinking about Africa's history are illustrated with a range of fascinating historical examples, drawn from over 5 millennia across this vast continent.
Review
A very well informed and sharply stated historiography... should be in every historiography student's kitbag. A tour de force... it made me think a great deal. Terence Ranger, The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies You will finish this book better informed, with a better understanding of Africa and a clearer idea of the questions. Robert Giddings, Tribune This small book is a smart and stimulating essay exploring issues of history, sources and methods, Africa in the world, colonialism and postcolonialism, and the past in the present as a means of introducing students and others to academic thinking about African history. Tom Spear, Journal of African History
Table of contents
- 1. The idea of Africa
- 2. Africans: unity and diversity
- 3. Africa's past: historical sources
- 4. Africa in the world
- 5. Colonial rule in Africa
- 6. Imagining the future, rebuilding the past
- 7. Past and present, memory and forgetting