This general history of modern Africa has been revised and updated to take full account of the fresh perspectives on African history brought about by the end of the Cold War.
Born in India of British colonial parents, Roland Oliver moved to Africa as a young man and became one of the continent's leading modern historians. In this memoir, he writes of his work in training African scholars to conduct regional surveys and collect oral histories, in assembling the multivolume Cambridge History of Africa, and in struggling to give African history academic legitimacy at a time when most universities did not have scholars qualified to teach even an elementary course in the subject. Along the way Oliver considers the questions that engage Africanists today, such as the significance of European colonialism in the historical development of the continent and whether nationalism did more harm than good in the formation of modern African states.
A textbook providing the only comprehensive and up-to-date account of African history between 500 B.C. and 1400 A.D. Also useful to students of archaeology.
Dramatic alterations in political power have corrected the once prevalent vision of a European-centered world. While the centers of European culture flourished, decayed and sprouted in turn, empires in Africa rose, ruled, resisted, and succumbed. Much of Africa's past has now been excavated from ignorance and error, revealing a rich and previously little-known human heritage. This classic work draws on the whole range of literature about Africa as well as evidence provided by archaeology, oral traditions, language relationships, and social institutions. It marshals the most authoritative views of African specialists into an absorbing narrative and puts forward original conclusions that take the study of Africa a stage further.
First published in 1991, this is a work of reflection on the substance of African history, the distillation of a lifetime's research and teaching. Roland Oliver traces, in twenty chapters, the history of Africa from the earliest evolution of man or pre-man' up to the present day, concentrating on the great themes of African history. So for example 'The Bricks of Babel' describes the evolution of African languages; Peoples of the Book', the arrival of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Masters and Slaves', slavery and the slave trade in Africa; Strangers at the Gates', the 19th-century impact of Europeans; the Slippery Slope', African governments in their first decades of independence. For this new edition Professor Oliver has made a number of revisions, including a new chapter summarising the triumphs and disasters of the 1990s.
By 1905 most of Africa had been subjected to European rule; in the 1940s, the colonial regimes faced widespread and mounting opposition. Yet the period surveyed in this volume was no mere interlude of enforced quiescence. The cash nexus expanded hugely, as Africans came to depend for access to household necessities upon the export overseas of primary products. The impact of white rule on African health and welfare was extremely uneven, and African lives were stunted by the labour requirements of capitalist enterprise. Many Africans suffered greatly in the First World War and in the world depression of the 1930s. By 1940 a majority of Africans were either Muslim or Christian. Literate Africans developed new solidarities: tribal, territorial, regional and Pan-African. Meanwhile, the colonial powers were themselves improving their understanding of Africa and trying to frame policies accordingly. Co-operation with indigenous rulers often seemed the best way to retain control at minimum cost, but the search for revenue entailed disruptive economic change.
The African Middle Ages covers the period of African history from 1400 to 1800. During this period Africa was influenced by external forces as the Islamic states of the north extended their sway and as maritime trade with Europe and Asia increased. The notorious slave-trade created the black population of North and South America, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean islands. The authors, however, emphasize the extent to which Africans dealt with outsiders on equal terms. The peoples of Africa were coalescing into tribal states rather like those of early medieval Europe. These states were often capable of providing a high degree of law and order, of exploiting resources and organising trade; of redistributing the products of local industries, and of defending themselves against outside attack. Though eventually subordinated by the colonial conquests of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the tribal states of pre-colonial Africa continue to exert a powerful residual influence upon the post-colonial states of modern Africa.
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