African History: A Very Short Introduction [Kindle Edition]

Like many of the OUP "Very Short Introduction" series, you can't really tell what the book is about from the title. This is not a survey of African history, but rather a survey of how historians, political leaders and others have interpreted African history. E.g., colonialists created an African history -- or pretended there wasn't one -- that would best serve the cause of colonialism. That is, if Africa is seen as a land of primitive, savage tribes, the colonial powers could defend their actions as just spreading civilization. Conversely, post-colonialists have often created a nationalistic view of African countries that did not exist prior to the European powers marking arbitary lines on their maps.

The authors take pains to note that any statement about Africa as a whole is likely an over-generalization. The history of the Congo area, for instance, is considerably different from that of South Africa. Yet, as diverse as the regions are, the authors assert that the concept of "Africa" shouldn't be abandoned.

The whole subject of African history is a difficult one for historians, or anyone, because of the lack of sources. What we know of African cities like Timbuktu is essentially what travelers wrote about them. Often, the African climate has worked to eradicate the records of what might have been there prior to 19th century European colonization. Even oral history is suspect, as oral histories are subject to change over time. This makes it difficult for those attempting to decolonize Africa to actually figure out what a particular African region was like prior to colonization. For once colonization began, the nature of the region might have changed drastically. For instance, the 1996 Rwanda genocide of the Hutu against the Tutsi is not, as depicted in Western media, a struggle between two tribes. The difference between the Hutu and the Tutsi -- genetically the same -- entirely stems from how these people were treated by German and Belgian colonialists, creating an artificial division between them that continued and worsened even after the Europeans were long gone. (It occurs to me as I write this, that this is somewhat similar to the aftermath of Ottoman colonization of Southern Slavs.)

But while African history can't escape concentrating on the effects of colonialism, the authors cover other areas, e.g., the participation of African states in the slave trade -- possibly as many slaves went East as went across the Atlantic, and many slaves were transferred internally only. African history can't be discussed without discussing the slave trade, but the authors warn that there was a lot going on at the time not related to the slave trade, so it's a mistake to think of Africa as a continent of victims.

History has always been more about interpretation than "facts", and that's particularly true in the case of Africa.

If you plan on reading any African history, or just want to understand the background of current African political issues, this book will provide needed perspective.

African History is not a short history of Africa, which is just as well as there are over 50 countries on the continent and only 149 pages of text in the book. Instead, this book sets out to provide an insight into how the history of Africa was perceived in the pre-Colonial and Colonial past and how histories of Africa became of interest and how they are now being written.

The book tackles all the tricky issues - how Africa has been and perhaps should be defined, what evidence for the past in Africa is available and how this can be used to build an understanding of African history, what sort of difficulties historians have faced (and still face), and how history, heritage and modern agendas relate to each other. The authors emphasize the dangers of applying new approaches and paradigms whole-heartedly in the challenge of understanding past dynamics - the risk of "throwing the baby out with the bath water" and ignoring the implications of some very solid facts in favour of arriving at a new gloss on those facts.

Whilst relevant to both Africa and historical writing in general, it is also of considerable interest to anyone asking questions about a) the relationship between identity, the past and historical writing and b) the nature of histories and archaeologies themselves.

This is both an excellent overview of how African history writing has evolved (and the problems it continues to tackle) and how "history" itself has had to evolve to meet the demands of the available data. Intelligent and thought provoking, this book is also immensely digestible and a very good read.

I had hoped for an introduction to African history, including some key events and so on. Instead this is an overview of some of the key themes, and a discussion of approaches to the study of African history, so I was left feeling I hadn't learnt much of what I wanted to. I found the style tedious and heavy going too.