African History

W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the leading figures of Pan-African thought and activism in the twentieth century. As a sociologist, Du Bois wrote much about the historical and social circumstances of African Americans while often acknowledging the African historical background of much of African American, or Negro, culture. In 1946, Du Bois published The World and Africa,...

In this groundbreaking work, the essayist and critic Adéwálé Májà-Pearce delivers a mordant verdict on Nigeria’s crisis of democracy. A mosaic of ethnic and religious groups, the most populous country in Africa was fabricated by British colonisers at the turn of the twentieth century. When Nigerians went to the polls to vote in the 2023 elections, they had experienced a...

The Rosetta Stone contains a decree written three times in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphic that provided the key to the mysterious hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt, and opened up 3,000 years of the country's history and culture. This book tells the fascinating story of one of archaeology's icons, from its creation in the second century BC, to its discovery in...

“[A] vivid travelogue.” New Statesman “Has much to offer.” The Spectator "Sparks the imagination." BBC History Magazine "A fascinating study." BBC History Revealed Magazine “Essential reading." All About History "Valiant, valuable and entertaining." Times Literary Supplement The greatest river in the world has a long and fascinating history. Professor Terje Tvedt, one of the world's leading experts on the history...

The people of the Congo have suffered a particularly brutal experience of colonial rule; and, following independence in 1960, external interference by the United States, the rapacious and dictatorial regime of Mobutu, and periodic warfare which even now continues fitfully in the East of the country. But the Congolese people have not taken these multiple oppressions lying down. They have...

The Grosvenor was one of the finest East Indiamen of her day, a grand three-masted square-rigger of 741 tons bristling with 26 cannon. When she ran aground on the treacherous coast of south-east Africa, an astonishing number of her crew and passengers, including women and children, reached the shore safely. But the castaways were hundreds of miles from the nearest...

On October 11th, 1899, long-simmering tensions between Britain and the Boer Republics - the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic - finally erupted into the conflict that would become known as the Second Boer War. Two days after the first shots were fired, a young writer by the name of Winston Churchill set out for South Africa to cover...

This title includes a new Foreword by WM. Roger Louis. On 26 July 1956, the British Empire received a blow from which it would never recover. On this day, Egypt's President Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, one of the gems of Britain's imperial portfolio. It was to be a fateful day for Britain as a world power....

For over four hundred years, thousands of African men and women were taken from their homeland and transported across the world to be sold into slavery. The history of this startling and horrific period is perennially important, and recent scholarship has sought to uncover the experiences of the slaves themselves in order to uncover the voices of its many victims....

Sir John Soane's Greatest Treasure describes one of the most important antiquities ever found in Egypt—the beautiful calcite sarcophagus of the pharaoh Seti I. Discovered in 1817 in the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings by the flamboyant explorer Giovanni Belzoni, the sarcophagus now resides in Sir John Soane's Museum in London's Lincoln's Inn Fields. Leading...

A compact volume about the famous battle that sums up some of the best traditions of the British self-image: steadfastness against the odds, victory in adversity, and the thin red line. The British stand deserves to go down in history as one of the most heroic actions of all time. The story of a mere 150 British and Imperial soldiers...

This exploration of cultural resilience examines the complex fate of classical Egyptian religion during the centuries from the period when Christianity first made its appearance in Egypt to when it became the region's dominant religion (roughly 100 to 600 C.E.). Taking into account the full range of witnesses to continuing native piety—from papyri and saints' lives to archaeology and terracotta...

The powerful image that the kings of Egypt presented to their subjects was so awe-inspiring and captivating that people today are still impressed by the compelling stories and imposing statuary of the Pharaoh. But the reality of Egyptian kingship was often much more complex, as Pharaoh: King of Egypt seeks to reveal.

Ordering Africa provides the first comparative overview of the role of anthropology in colonial Africa. With essays exploring metropolitan research institutes, Africans as ethnographers, and the transnational features of knowledge production, this volume both consolidates and extends a range of new research questions focusing on the politics of imperial knowledge.

The 1994 genocide of the Tutsi, an attempt to exterminate a minority people, was unprecedented in speed and scale, comparable to the genocide of the Armenians by Turkey and the Nazi Holocaust. But the violence continues today, as supporters of the racist ideology of Hutu Power continue to undermine the established version of events through systematic denial, propaganda, and fake...

This fourth edition of this best-selling core history textbook offers a richly illustrated, single volume, narrative introduction to African history, from a hugely respected authority in the field. The market-leading range of illustrated material from prior editions is now further improved, featuring not only additional and redrawn maps and a refreshed selection of photographs, but the addition of full colour...

This book tells the story of Task Force Ranger – a unit of US Rangers and Special Forces – and their attempt to capture the lieutenants of the Somali warlord Muhamed Farrah Aideed, during the 1993 United Nations' humanitarian relief mission. What started as a simple snatch-and-grab mission quickly degenerated into a desperate battle for survival when US Black Hawk...

In the half-century between 1831 and 1881, three massive obelisks left Egypt for new lands. Prior to these journeys, the last large obelisk moved was the Vatican obelisk in 1586 – one of the great engineering achievements of the Renaissance. Roman emperors moved more than a dozen but left no records of how they did it. The nineteenth-century engineers entrusted...

Over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent were playing a significant and far-ranging role in British history. From the African soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas, their contributions have been vital. While there has been growing interest in this history,...

To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artefacts over the course of many millennia, but one which has also drawn thieves and tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage, and period sources, this book tracks the history of treasure-seekers in Egypt...

Walter Rodney was a scholar, working-class militant, and revolutionary from Guyana. Strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, he remains central to radical Pan-Africanist thought for many activists today. Rodney lived through the failed, though immensely hopeful, socialist experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, in Tanzania and elsewhere. A Revolutionary for Our Time critically considers Rodney's contribution to Marxist theory and history,...

An essential guide for the discerning time-traveller: take a trip to ancient Egypt at the height of its power and prosperity in the reign of Ramesses II. More reliable than Herodotus and more upbeat than The Book of the Dead, this popular book in Thames & Hudson's successful Time Travel series takes the reader to Ancient Egypt in the time...

This unique and rich collection of narratives, written or dictated by formerly enslaved Africans between 1820 and 1876, offers a rare snapshot of African voices in the history of slavery. Including narratives from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean trades, as well as testimonies from enslaved people who never left the African continent, it expands the chronological and geographical scope of...

A groundbreaking history that puts early and medieval West Africa in a global context. Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region's history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social...

Every time you try to say Africa is... the words crumble and break. From every generalisation you must exclude at least five countries. And just as you think you've nailed down a certainty, you find the opposite is also true. Africa is full of surprises. For the past three decades, Richard Dowden has travelled this vast and varied continent, listening,...

This concise edition of the biography of Walatta-Petros (1672) tells the story of an Ethiopian saint who lived from 1592 to 1642 and led a successful nonviolent movement to preserve African Christian beliefs in the face of European protocolonialism. This is the oldest-known book-length biography of an African woman written by Africans before the nineteenth century, and one of the...

On 21st November 2017, Robert Mugabe resigned as President of Zimbabwe after 37 years in power. A week earlier, the military had seized control of the country and forced him to step down as leader of the ruling Zanu-PF party. In this revised and updated edition of his classic biography, Stephen Chan seeks to explain and interpret Mugabe in his...

The epic 4000-year story of the world's greatest civilisation from a world-leading Egyptologist The history of Egypt is full of spectacular sites and epic stories, an evolving society rich in heroes and villains, inventors and intellectuals, artisans and pioneers. Now Professor Joann Fletcher pulls together the complete Story of Egypt — charting the rise and fall of the ancient Egyptians...

New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' – Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A real game-changer' – Economist Walk into any Western museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date, and place of origin. They...

An essential overview of great kingdoms in African history and their legacies, written by world-leading experts. From the ancient Nile Valley to the savannas of medieval West Africa, the highlands of Ethiopia, and on to the forests, lakes, and grasslands to the south, African civilizations have given rise to some of the world's most impressive kingdoms. Yet Africa's history is...

One of the most compelling and controversial figures in history, Akhenaten has captured the imagination like no other Egyptian pharaoh. Known today as a heretic, Akhenaten sought to impose upon Egypt and its people the worship of a single god - the sun - and in so doing changed the country in every way. In this immensely readable re-evaluation, Nicholas...

A fresh and penetrating exploration of South Africa’s history, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present. “I did not think it was possible for a white person to write a history of South Africa which a black South African would find to be a fair and accurate account of a beautiful land and its people....

One of the first books to examine the wide breadth of the African Diaspora and its influence on international fashion. Tracing the local and global impact of Black Diasporic designers, Africa's Fashion Diaspora is one of the first books to explore the diverse perspectives and significant roles that Black designers have contributed to the creation of international fashion culture. With...

The Second Emancipation, a work of Odyssean dimension, recasts the liberation of post–World War II colonial Africa and the American civil rights struggle through the lens of Ghana's revolutionary visionary Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), who emerges as the most significant African leader of the twentieth century. Determined that readers fully understand Nkrumah's legacy, bestselling author of Born in Blackness, Howard W....

Textual Life is a groundbreaking book that recasts the role of knowledge in the making of a colonial and postcolonial nation. It makes a case for a new literary and intellectual-historical approach to Islam in Africa. The Senegalese Muslim scholar Shaykh Musa Kamara (1864–1945) wrote History of the Blacks, a monumental history of West Africa, during a time when colonial...

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Nairobi, named after the cool water that flows through it, started as a railway stop and became known as the Green City in the Sun. Yet, the city has taken shape through a set of anti-urban...

More than fifty years after his death, Gamal Abd al-Nasser remains a towering figure in the Arab world. As one of the young officers who overthrew British-backed King Farouk in 1952, Nasser rose to prominence as a charismatic visionary who challenged foreign dominance. At just 36 years old, he became the undisputed leader of Egypt, in a presidency that would...

A Sea of Wealth is a sweeping retelling of the Omani position in the Indian Ocean. Here the reign of Oman’s longest-serving ruler, Saʿid bin Sultan, offers a keyhole through which we can peer to see the entangled histories of Arabia and the Gulf, South Asia, and East Africa in the Omani Empire. In centering this empire, Nicholas P. Roberts...

How Africa's most notorious tyrant made his oppressive regime seem both necessary and patriotic A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda explores the ruthless regime of Idi Amin, who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on its people. How did Amin's regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the...

Beautiful edition taking the reader through the origins and history of African nations and peoples, highlighting the roots of modern fiction in history, myth and fable. Africa is a crucible of many civilisations, indeed of humanity. African peoples can be traced back 16,000 years or so to 5 ancestral civilisational groups based on their language families, such as the Nilo-Saharan...

The Concubine, Elechi Amadi’s most celebrated work of fiction, paints a picture of pre-colonial life in rural Eastern Nigeria and explores the boundary between myth and reality. Ihuoma is a woman of great beauty and dignity, beloved in a village that remains untouched by colonialism. By all accounts, she should be happy and in love. Yet she faces misfortune after...

The fruit of over two decades of research, this text argues that the Great Pyramid was a source of harmonic resonance that converted the Earth's vibrational energies to electricity. Did this technology of harmonic resonance provide the ancient world with endless supplies of energy, and was this the same energy discovered by Nicholas Tesla? Discover the fascinating theories in The...

Sir Geoffrey Cox described Sidi Rezegh, fought during Operation Crusader in Libya over November and December 1941, as ‘the forgotten battle of the Desert War’. The objective of Crusader was to retake Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, and ultimately drive the Italians and Germans out of North Africa. The campaign also involved British and South African troops, and did...

Britain's Gulag is the twentieth anniversary edition of Caroline Elkins's Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé, now with a new introduction. After decades of British rule in Kenya, 1952 saw the start of the Mau Mau uprising—a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly...

What if you could control what the reality around you returns by controlling the energies you sent to the Universe in actions, words, and thoughts? What if you could become the creator of your own happiness, changing the reality around you and achieving your dreams with the power of African Gods and Goddesses? Through African magical traditions and their resemblance...

A unique, startling book that gives a rich and detailed sense of life in an African port some 360 years ago. In 1665 Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers—the djabak s. But...

“The political machinations, betrayal, and battles may appeal to those fans of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series interested in a real-world game of thrones.” -- Booklist One of Italy’s most revered cultural figures reconstructs the extraordinary life of the legendary Cleopatra at the height of her power in this epic story of passion, intrigue,...

A startling exploration of slavery in the Islamic world from the 7th century to the present. Slavery in the Islamic world has a long, rich and controversial history. Unlike the notorious and shorter-lived Atlantic slave trade, its story is much less known. In the earliest days of Islam, Arab Muslims enslaved men, women and children as the spoils of war....

Over twenty years ago, Sven Lindqvist, one of the great pioneers of a new kind of experiential history writing, set out across Central Africa. Obsessed with a single line from Conrad's The Heart of Darkness—Kurtz's injunction to 'Exterminate All the Brutes'—he braided an account of his experiences with a profound historical investigation. He reveals to the reader with immediacy and...

A lost imperial city, full of wonder and marvels. An empire that was the largest the world had ever seen, established with astonishing speed. A people obsessed with travel, knowledge and adventure. Winner of the Indie Book Awards 2023 Non Fiction Book of the Year Shortlisted for the BookPeople Non Fiction Book of the Year 2023 When Richard Fidler came...

A rumbustious retelling of the birth of the Enlightenment, from the bestselling radical author of The Dawn of Everything. The Enlightenment did not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of Piracy —...

From the acclaimed author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia, comes a new journey tracing a colonial-era African expedition. In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa's resources. The key to cracking open the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants - if only he could train them. And so he commissioned the...

Africa offers a uniquely fascinating journey through the history of a continent and its peoples. Immerse yourself in the intricate story of Africa and discover Africa's true place in world history. Spanning more than 200,000 years, from the emergence of the first humans to the rise of megacities, Africa explores the history and cultures of the world's second-largest continent in...

A radical retelling of the history of science that foregrounds the scientists erased from history. In this major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, James Poskett explodes the myth that science began in Europe. The blinkered Western gaze focusing on individual 'genius'—Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein—was only one part of the story. The reality was...

An authoritative rethinking of global history by a leading Yale professor. When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world....

A truly global view of history covering over 350 of the world's most important milestones and key turning points. An essential gift for every history buff, this boldly illustrated book maps out the events that have shaped our world—from the dawn of human civilisation to the present day. A comprehensive and accessible guide to the history of human civilisation, World...

The final chapter in the definitive, three-volume history of the world's first known state. Archaeologist John Romer has spent a lifetime chronicling the history of Ancient Egypt, and here he tells the epic story of an era dominated by titans of the popular imagination—the radical iconoclast Akhenaten, the boy-king Tutankhamun, and the all-conquering Ramesses II. But 'heroes' do not forge...

A History of Ancient Egypt by John Romer delves into the captivating saga of one of the world's most enigmatic and influential civilizations, from its earliest origins to the creation of its most iconic monument, the Great Pyramid of Giza. This meticulously researched book offers an immersive experience, guiding readers through the rise of ancient Egyptian society, starting from the...

Precolonial Black Africa by Cheikh Anta Diop juxtaposes the rich, multi-faceted societies of mediaeval West Africa with their European counterparts, revealing a sophisticated and advanced civilisation often overlooked in broader historical narratives. Through meticulous research and analysis, Diop draws on primary sources such as the 'Tarikh-as-Sudan' and the 'Tarikh-al-Fettash' to explore the fundamental components of mediaeval West African civilisation and...

Shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize ‘Gripping and profoundly moving’ DAMON GALGUT ‘Deft and operatic’ OBSERVER From one of South Africa’s foremost nonfiction writers, a deeply researched, shattering new account of Nelson Mandela’s relationship with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Drawing on never-before-seen material, Steinberg reveals the fractures and stubborn bonds at the heart of a volatile and groundbreaking union, a very...

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, written by Walter Rodney, is an ambitious masterwork of political economy that delves deeply into the devastating impacts of slavery and colonialism on the continent of Africa. The book outlines how these historical processes were instrumental to the development of international capitalism, arguing persuasively that African underdevelopment is neither an incidental outcome nor a feature of...

When Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire received the call to serve as the force commander for the UN mission in Rwanda, he expected to mediate peace between two warring factions. Instead, he found himself in the midst of one of the most horrifying genocides of the 20th century. Shake Hands with the Devil is not just a memoir; it is an...

An updated and revised biography of Patrice Lumumba, former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Patrice Lumumba (1926-61) is perhaps the most famous leader of the African independence movement. He became an icon of anti-imperialist struggle after his execution in 1961, when he had been the prime minister of the newly liberated Congo for only seven months....

POETIC AND FIERCE - Olivette Otele, author of AFRICAN EUROPEANS THIS SWEEPING HISTORY RESTORES WOMEN TO THE CENTRE OF AFRICAN POLITICAL POWER... BOTH ACCESSIBLE AND RIGOROUS The Observer A RICH, SUMPTUOUS AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN TAPESTRY - Candice Carty-Williams, author of QUEENIE A SEARING, NOURISHING JOURNEY THROUGH A HISTORY THE WORLD NEEDS - Bettany Hughes, author of THE SEVEN WONDERS OF...

The Scramble for Africa astonished everyone. In 1880, most of the continent was ruled by Africans and barely explored. By 1902, five European Powers (and one extraordinary individual) had seized almost the entire continent, creating 30 new colonies and protectorates. This land grab added 10 million square miles of new territory and 110 million bewildered new subjects. Thomas Pakenham's account...

'A wonderful debut by a talented and exciting young historian' Peter Frankopan 'Simultaneously capacious and personal . . . a masterful achievement' Tom Holland 'Elegant and powerful, Pepera's magnificent book elevates our understanding of Africa's overlooked histories' Olivette Otele Motherland is a ground-breaking exploration of African culture and identity, told via Luke Pepera's journey through 500,000 years of history to...

In his inimitable prose, Prunier conveys how one of the world's newest nations came into being and survived, against all odds. The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus, decolonisation and pan-Somalism became synonymous. In 1960, a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. Africa Confidential wrote...

In 1990, Namibia gained its independence after a decades-long struggle against South African rule and, before that, against German colonialism. This book, the first new scholarly general history of Namibia in two decades, provides a fresh synthesis of these events, and of the much longer pre-colonial period. A History of Namibia opens with a chapter by John Kinahan covering the...

During the colonisation of Africa, European colonists set about creating game reserves in Africa, convinced that they would find in Africa a nature that no longer existed in Europe. After independence, and with the help of UNESCO and the WWF, African leaders continued to 'protect' the same nature — a nature that the whole world wanted to be pristine, wild,...

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes. In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach. In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the...

When Stephen Ellis died in July 2015, African Studies lost one of its most prolific, provocative, and celebrated scholars. Given the scale and uniqueness of his contribution, it is perhaps surprising that a collection of his writings did not appear during his lifetime. It is now possible to bring such a volume to the public. With an introduction by Tim...

A History of the Muslim World to 1750 traces the development of Islamic civilization from the career of the Prophet Muhammad to the mid-eighteenth century. Encompassing a wide range of significant events within the period, its coverage includes the creation of the Dar al-Islam (the territory ruled by Muslims), the fragmentation of society into various religious and political groups including...

A History of the Muslim World to 1750 traces the development of Islamic civilization from the career of the Prophet Muhammad to the mid-eighteenth century. Encompassing a wide range of significant events within the period, its coverage includes the creation of the Dar al-Islam (the territory ruled by Muslims), the fragmentation of society into various religious and political groups including...

‘One of the greatest writers of our time.’ Toni Morrison You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston … her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century.’ The New York Times Book Review Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates...

This book is a selective retrospective of David Goldblatt, a key figure in twentieth-century and contemporary photography. Starting from his earliest photographic searchings, it shows the foundations of Goldblatt's critical passion for photography, his social sensitivity, and political consciousness. Also to see are his most recent photographs, always in tight relation to the changing situation in South Africa, his native...

Composed of paper, commercial packaging, and the stuff of everyday life, Bodys Isek Kingelez's extreme maquettes transform these materials into fantastic visions that encompass civic buildings, public monuments, and private pavilions. Published to accompany the first retrospective of his work, this book traces the span of Kingelez's career, from early single structure works included in Centre Pompidou's landmark 1989 exhibition,...

Longlisted for the 2024 Berger Prize. An important illustrated history of the relationship between Cambridge and the Black Atlantic. Between 1400 and 1900, European powers, not least Britain, colonised the Americas and transported over 12.5 million people from sub-Saharan Africa as slaves. The contested space, formed by the interactions of multiple people and cultures, both Black and white, we now...

For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa's Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. One of the world's foremost experts on restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy investigates extensive, previously unpublished sources to...

"After existing orally for hundreds of years, Sunjata was written down in the 20th century. David Conrad, who recorded a new version of the epic, has now crafted a prose translation that preserves the oral flavour of live performance. The result is a captivating work of literature that will finally give the story of Sunjata its well-deserved place among the...

"Featuring a clever introduction and judicious collection of documents, Michael Rutz's book neatly captures the drama of one king's quest to build an empire in Central Africa—a quest that began in the name of anti-slavery and free trade and ended in the brutal exploitation of human lives. This volume is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the history...