Approaching African History
by Michael Brett /
2013 / English / PDF
13.1 MB Download
Africa is a huge continent, as large as the more habitable areas of
Europe and Asia put together. It has a history immensely long, yet
the study of that history as an academic discipline in its own
right is little more than fifty years old. Since then the subject
has grown enormously, but the question of what this history is and
how it has been approached still needs to be asked, not least to
answer the question of why should we study it. This book takes as
its subject the last 10,000 years of African history, and traces
the way in which human society on the continent has evolved from
communities of hunters and gatherers to the complex populations of
today. Approaching that history through its various dimensions:
archaeological, ethnographic, written, scriptural, European and
contemporary, it looks at how the history of such a vast region
over such a length of time has been conceived and presented, and
how it is to be investigated. The problem itself is historical, and
an integral part of the history with which it is concerned,
beginning with the changing awareness over the centuries of what
Africa might be. Michael Brett thus traces the history of Africa
not only on the ground, but also in the mind, in order to make his
own historical contribution to the debate. Michael Brett is
Emeritus Reader in the History of North Africa at SOAS.
Africa is a huge continent, as large as the more habitable areas of
Europe and Asia put together. It has a history immensely long, yet
the study of that history as an academic discipline in its own
right is little more than fifty years old. Since then the subject
has grown enormously, but the question of what this history is and
how it has been approached still needs to be asked, not least to
answer the question of why should we study it. This book takes as
its subject the last 10,000 years of African history, and traces
the way in which human society on the continent has evolved from
communities of hunters and gatherers to the complex populations of
today. Approaching that history through its various dimensions:
archaeological, ethnographic, written, scriptural, European and
contemporary, it looks at how the history of such a vast region
over such a length of time has been conceived and presented, and
how it is to be investigated. The problem itself is historical, and
an integral part of the history with which it is concerned,
beginning with the changing awareness over the centuries of what
Africa might be. Michael Brett thus traces the history of Africa
not only on the ground, but also in the mind, in order to make his
own historical contribution to the debate. Michael Brett is
Emeritus Reader in the History of North Africa at SOAS.