This book, as Richard Reid explains at the outset, is not the history of the European “Scramble for Africa” that the publishers asked him to write. It is a story of the African scramble. In ...

The General History of Africa (GHA) is a flagship initiative of the UNESCO Operational Strategy for Priority Africa (2022–2029). It seeks to fundamentally reshape how African history is taught and ...

Since its launch in 1964, the General History of Africa (GHA) has aimed to trace the history of Africa from the point of view of Africans themselves with the aim of ridding historiographical ...

“Africa is the birthplace of humankind itself, yet little of its ancient and modern history is widely known,” writes Zeinab Badawi in her ambitious new book. Reading it, we are reminded yet again that ...

John Iliffe, the distinguished scholar renowned for his life’s work in African history, died on 20 August 2026 at the age of 87. He shed light on big themes in Africa’s history. His 12 books were ...

Were you told that gold mining in southern Africa started after 1852? Or that the export of iron, steel, copper and gold began in the late 19th century? Or that South Africa became integrated into a ...

Slavery has long existed in human societies, but the transatlantic slave trade is unique in terms of the destructive impact it had on Africa. How did it shape the fortunes of an entire continent? From ...

The continent of Africa is recognized as the place where humankind originated and evolved over millennia. From famous ancestors like Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis remains unearthed in Ethiopia ...

European colonisation of Africa was not only about armed conquest, massacres and the exploitation of resources. It was also about the appropriation of spiritual and political symbols. It led to the ...

Cape Town, South Africa – Lucy Campbell, with her long grey dreadlocks, stands animated in front of the thick stone walls of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town’s city centre, her small frame ...