African History: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions available now: AFRICAN HISTORY THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon John Parker and Richard Rathbone CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore ANARCHISM Colin Ward CONTEMPORARY ART ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw Julian Stallabrass ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Continental Philosophy Julia Annas Simon Critchley ANCIENT WARFARE COSMOLOGY Peter Coles Harry Sidebottom THE CRUSADES ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman Christopher Tyerman THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE CRYPTOGRAPHY John Blair Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia DADA AND SURREALISM ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn David Hopkins ARCHITECTURE Darwin Jonathan Howard Andrew Ballantyne THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes Timothy Lim ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Democracy Bernard Crick ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland DESCARTES Tom Sorell THE HISTORY OF DESIGN John Heskett ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin DINOSAURS David Norman Atheism Julian Baggini DREAMING J. Allan Hobson Augustine Henry Chadwick DRUGS Leslie Iversen BARTHES Jonathan Culler THE EARTH Martin Redfern THE BIBLE John Riches ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch BRITISH POLITICS EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY Anthony Wright BRITAIN Paul Langford Buddha Michael Carrithers THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BUDDHISM Damien Keown EMOTION Dylan Evans BUDDHIST ETHICS EMPIRE Stephen Howe Damien Keown ENGELS Terrell Carver CAPITALISM James Fulcher Ethics Simon Blackburn THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe The European Union CHAOS Leonard Smith John Pinder CHOICE THEORY EVOLUTION Michael Allingham Brian and Deborah Charlesworth CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead FASCISM Kevin Passmore CLASSICS Mary Beard and FEMINISM Margaret Walters John Henderson THE FIRST WORLD WAR CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard Michael Howard FOSSILS Keith Thomson LOGIC Graham Priest FOUCAULT Gary Gutting MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THE MARQUIS DE SADE William Doyle John Phillips FREE WILL Thomas Pink MARX Peter Singer Freud Anthony Storr MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers FUNDAMENTALISM MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope Malise Ruthven MEDIEVAL BRITAIN Galileo Stillman Drake John Gillingham and Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh Ralph A. Griffiths GLOBAL CATASTROPHES MODERN ART David Cottington Bill McGuire MODERN IRELAND GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger Senia Pasˇeta GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin MOLECULES Philip Ball HABERMAS MUSIC Nicholas Cook James Gordon Finlayson Myth Robert A. Segal HEGEL Peter Singer NATIONALISM Steven Grosby HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood NEWTON Robert Iliffe HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner HINDUISM Kim Knott NINETEENTH-CENTURY HISTORY John H. Arnold BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and HOBBES Richard Tuck H. C. G. Matthew HUMAN EVOLUTION NORTHERN IRELAND Bernard Wood Marc Mulholland HUME A. J. Ayer PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden paul E. P. Sanders Indian Philosophy Philosophy Edward Craig Sue Hamilton PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Intelligence Ian J. Deary Raymond Wacks INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE MIGRATION Khalid Koser Samir Okasha ISLAM Malise Ruthven PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves PLATO Julia Annas JUDAISM Norman Solomon POLITICS Kenneth Minogue Jung Anthony Stevens POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY KAFKA Ritchie Robertson David Miller KANT Roger Scruton POSTCOLONIALISM KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Robert Young THE KORAN Michael Cook POSTMODERNISM LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews Christopher Butler LITERARY THEORY POSTSTRUCTURALISM Jonathan Culler Catherine Belsey LOCKE John Dunn PREHISTORY Chris Gosden PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt Catherine Osborne SOCIAL AND CULTURAL Psychology Gillian Butler and ANTHROPOLOGY Freda McManus John Monaghan and Peter Just PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns SOCIALISM Michael Newman QUANTUM THEORY SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce John Polkinghorne Socrates C. C. W. Taylor RACISM Ali Rattansi THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton Helen Graham RENAISSANCE ART SPINOZA Roger Scruton Geraldine A. Johnson STUART BRITAIN John Morrill ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway TERRORISM THE ROMAN EMPIRE Charles Townshend Christopher Kelly THEOLOGY David F. Ford ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler THE HISTORY OF TIME RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Leofranc Holford-Strevens RUSSIAN LITERATURE TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Catriona Kelly THE TUDORS John Guy THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION TWENTIETH-CENTURY S. A. Smith BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan SCHIZOPHRENIA THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling SCHOPENHAUER WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Christopher Janaway THE WORLD TRADE SHAKESPEARE ORGANIZATION Germaine Greer Amrita Narlikar Available soon: 1066 George Garnett HUMAN RIGHTS ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller Andrew Clapham CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Paul Wilkinson Helen Morales MEMORY Jonathan Foster EXPRESSIONISM MODERN CHINA Katerina Reed-Tsocha Rana Mitter GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds SCIENCE AND RELIGION GERMAN LITERATURE Thomas Dixon Nicholas Boyle TYPOGRAPHY Paul Luna For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/ John Parker and Richard Rathbone AFRICAN HISTORY A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York AucklandCape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala LumpurMadrid MelbourneMexico CityNairobi New DelhiShanghaiTaipeiToronto With offices in ArgentinaAustriaBrazilChileCzech RepublicFranceGreece GuatemalaHungaryItaly Japan PolandPortugalSingapore South KoreaSwitzerlandThailand TurkeyUkraineVietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © John Parker and Richard Rathbone 2007 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire ISBN 978–0–19–280248–4 1357910864 2 Contents List of illustrations ix List of maps xi 1 The idea of Africa 1 2 Africans: diversity and unity 25 3 Africa’s past: historical sources 48 4 Africa in the world 70 5 Colonialism in Africa 91 6 Imagining the future, rebuilding the past 114 7 Memory and forgetting, past and present 135 References 151 Further reading 155 Index 161 This page intentionally left blank List of illustrations 1 The 7 Three officials of the Mediterranean-centred Omani government world 6 of Zanzibar 35 akg-images The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African 2 A house in Jenne 18 Photographs, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Casa das Áfricas, Brazil Studies, Northwestern University 3 Terracotta figure of 8 President E. J. Roye of a mounted warrior 21 Liberia 37 Werner Forman Archive. Courtesy of Entwistle Gallery, The Library of Congress London 9 Shaka Zulu 41 4 Tuareg horsemen 23 The British Library Casa das Áfricas, Brazil 10 Priests of the Ethiopian 5 A signar, or ‘woman Orthodox Church 52 of colour of Senegal’ 30 Mary Evans Picture Library The British Library 11 Translating the Bible in 6 A commando of Abokobi, Gold Coast 55 National Party Archives Mission 21: Basel supporters 33 Mission ref. QD-32.032.0005 Photograph by David 12 Kuba royal statue 66 Goldblatt The Trustees of the British Museum