Short description:

The new edition of this comprehensive survey of African history provides an accessible overview of the continent?s narrative, focusing on the autonomy and achievements of the African people.

Long description:

The new edition of this comprehensive survey of African history provides an accessible overview of the continent?s narrative, focusing on the autonomy and achievements of the African people.

The book brings readers closer to an authentic Africa by paying close attention to the lives of everyday people and highlighting insights and ideas that are often missed in typical survey texts. The fourth edition offers expanded coverage of smaller linguistic and ethnic groups in Africa in order to provide a more inclusive history, noting a few individual groups while also analyzing their contributions to the overall narrative and African culture. Liberia?s hidden history is given greater attention in this updated volume, as well as the ethnic and religious tensions in Nigeria and Sudan. While the book emphasizes that African history is always being made, the fourth edition brings the record up to date and grapples with contemporary issues in culture and politics.

The History of Africa is an indispensable text for students and researchers in African history, cultural studies, philosophy, and politics.

"In this fourth edition of The History of Africa the historian and philosopher Molefi Kete Asante has extended the reach of his already best-selling and popular book. This edition is heavily illustrated with updated photographs, charts, and graphs as well as key narratives on themes and memes in politics, ecology, and demographics. The unique and well-researched areas of history involving the agency of the African people themselves are further highlighted with dramatic examples that bring to life the experiences of the ordinary people of Africa, and narrations of documents central to understanding the unfolding of African history.  

The History of Africa written by the most prolific African American scholar is already one of the most classic books ever written on African history. It is praised by scholars who have studied Africa for decades as well as those who are newcomers to the field. Asante?s history releases the history of Africa from the chains of observers who see Africa as object and his work thrusts the continent and its people into the forefront of Africa as actors, not as spectators to the visions of others. In this way Asante?s fourth edition of The History of Africa is a visionary work based solidly on the grounding that comes from the overwhelming nature of the evidence, resources, and experiences of African people. No other history of Africa is so conscious of the narrative of its people from human origin to the 21^st century."

Jabali Ade, Temple University, USA, editor of Afrocentricity in Afro-Futurism: Toward Afrocentric Futurism

Table of Contents:

Introduction to the Fourth Edition, The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony Part I: The Time of Awakening  1. Africa and the Origin of Humanity  Part II: The Age of Literacy  2. Africa and the Beginning of Civilization  3. The Rise of Kemet/Egypt  4. The Elements of Early African Civilization  5. Governance and the Political Stability of Kemet  Part III: The Moment of Realization  6. The Emergence of the Great River Kingdoms  Part IV: The Age of Construction  7. The Spread of Classical Empires and Kingdoms  8. The Sudanic Empires: Historians and Their Narratives  9. Generators of Traditional and Contemporary Africa  10. Societies of Secrets and Institutions  Part V: The Time of Chaos  11. Arab and European Missionaries, Merchants, and Mercenaries  12. Resisting European and Arab Slave Traders  Part VI: The Age of Reconstruction  13. Africa Regains Consciousness in a Pan-African Explosion  Part VII: The Time for Consolidation  14. Africa Consolidates Independence  15. Toward a United States of Africa Without Compromise: Creation of the African Union