Encyclopedia of African History

Kevin Shillington (Ed.)

Three Volumes

African history as a modern academic discipline came of age in the 1950s, the decade of African nationalism that saw the parallel emergence of African institutions of higher education in the continent.

The present Encyclopedia of African History builds upon this tradition, and in doing so provides a new reference resource on the history of the African continent and an up-to-date survey of the current state of scholarship at the turn of the new millennium. Unlike other reference works that do not treat North Africa together with Sub-Saharan Africa, the coverage

of this encyclopedia is that of the whole continent, from Morocco, Libya and Egypt in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south, and includes the surrounding islands, from Cape Verde in the west to Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles in the east. Covering the history of the continent as a diverse whole - with complementary and competing cultural forces from north to south and east to west. An indispensable feature of this work is that students can find African history presented with a view to the continent in its entirety.

The historical periods covered are also unique for a reference work. This encyclopedia does not chop African history into discrete and seemingly unrelated periods. To allow students to find the interlinking histories of continuity and change, the periods included in this encyclopedia range from the earliest evolution of human beings on the continent to the new millennium. Approximately one-third of the encyclopedia covers the history of Africa to the end of the eighteenth century.

How to use this book

The Encyclopedia of African History is organized into a series of free-standing essays, most of them approximately 1,000 words in length. They range from factual narrative entries to thematic and analytical discussions, and combination of all these. There are, in addition, a number of longer essays of about 3,000-5,000 words, which analyze broader topics: regional general surveys, historiographical essays, and wide historical themes, such as the African Diaspora, African Political systems, and Africa in World History. The encyclopedia takes a broadly African viewpoint of the history of the continent, where this is appropriate, and as far as possible provides the reader with a reliable, up-to-date view of the current state of scholarship on full range of African history. A far as possible, this book takes the history of Africa up to the present, at least to the opening years of the twenty-first century.

Perhaps the most significant feature of the encyclopedia is then easily accessible A-to-Z format. The titles of the essays are organized for easy reference into composite articles on the major regions, states, themes, societies and individuals of African history.