History

The Ancient Empires of Africa: Imperial Governments and “Native” Rulers.

Ancient state structures in Africa included Empires, which carried with them all the complexity, inequalities, and political baggage inherent in such systems.On 19th January 1469, the…

isaac Samuel

The Gold Currency, Trade and Wealth of Medieval Ethiopia

Gold was one of the oldest metals worked by ancient African societies.In Ethiopia, evidence for the first gold coins minted by African rulers south of Egypt…

isaac Samuel

The Migration of “Heretics” and Refugees To Africa During Late Antiquity

Africa was a haven for religious minorities (“heretics”), political exiles, and other refugees from beyond the continent during Late Antiquity.In 615, following the persecutions in Mecca,…

isaac Samuel

The Lost City of Malindi in Global and African History (c. 850-1890 CE)

The city of Malindi is one of the oldest urban settlements in East Africa.Several clusters of stone ruins abandoned in the 18th century have been associated…

isaac Samuel

Ancient Expeditions to Central Africa and the Circumnavigation of the Continent

The ancient world was a far more interconnected place than is commonly recognised.In 1851, archaeologists discovered three clay sealings of King Shabako of Kush in the…

isaac Samuel

The White Masks of Gabon: “Foreign” symbolism in Traditional African sculpture.

Among the most refined works of African art are the distinctive white masks of southern Gabon in Central Africa.Characterized by their kaolin-whitened faces, almond-shaped eyes, elaborate…

isaac Samuel

The African origins of Abolition: African Anti-Slavery Laws in the Atlantic World.

Abolitionism succeeded thanks to the struggles of many movements, some of which were global, while others were local and emerged from pre-existing Anti-slavery laws in pre-colonial…

isaac Samuel

The Oil Economies of Pre-colonial West Africa: Palm Oil and the Industrial Revolution (1800-1891)

Before the discovery of petroleum, the Industrial Revolution was powered by Palm Oil, an ancient West African commodity whose trade drove a period of remarkable economic…

isaac Samuel

State Driven Agrarian Development in the Contested Borderlands of Northwestern Ethiopia: The Experience of the Humera State Farm Project, 1975–91

Drawing on an extensive examination of primary sources, this paper considers the persistent tensions between state-led development and local agencies in Humera—a northwestern Ethiopian borderland—during the…

Engida, Alemayehu Erkihun

Eugenic Discourse as Political Argument in Colonial Freetown

This article uses the idea of “fugitive science” to show how early twentieth-century writers and editors in colonial Freetown, Sierra Leone, repurposed eugenic ideas in their…

Keegan, Thomas

Beyond Historiography: Innovative Approaches to the West African Book

Naylor, Paul

The Aftermath of the 1964 Revolution in Zanzibar - Zanzibar Was a Country: Exile and Citizenship between East Africa and the Gulf- Nathaniel Mathews. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2024. Pp. 358. $95.00, hardcover (ISBN: 9780520394520).

Assoumani, Aïmana

An Artist and Anti-Apartheid Activism - Available Light: Omar Badsha and the Struggle for Change in South Africa Daniel Magaziner. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2024. Pp. 324. $95.00, hardcover (ISBN: 9780821425619); $36.95, paperback (ISBN: 9780821425626).

Price, Elizabeth

Recalibrating São Tomé and Príncipe: History, Anthropology, and Legacies of the Portuguese Colonial Empire

Pereira, Matheus

A Colonial Matryoshka Doll: Rubu “Traditional” Labor in the Uganda Protectorate, 1923–39

This paper analyzes the use of rubu unpaid “traditional” labor in Toro District in western Uganda during the colonial period. It explores how the “traditional” roots…

Okia, Opolot

Becoming the “High Priest of Hutu Supremacy”: The Case Against Historian Ferdinand Nahimana at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

This article reconsiders the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) “Media Trial” that followed in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While both the original…

Mosely, Erin

The Century’s Firstborn: Intimate History in the Aftermath of Nineteenth-Century Islamic Revolutions in Central Mali – ERRATUM

Thiam, Madina

Editors’ Introduction: New Histories from the Margins of the Archive

It is fitting that our final volume as the History in Africa editorial team features articles that reconceptualize classic archival sources and reimagine new forms of…

Semley, Lorelle

Towards a Dramatization of the Anglo-Ijebu Conflict of 1892: Creating a Script

This paper is situated within the context of the onset of British imperialism in Nigeria at the end of the nineteenth century, with a particular focus…

Oduwobi, Tunde

Aɖaʋatram (Madness Has Led Me Astray): Ritual Archives and Ewe Identities on the Ghana–Togo Borderlands

The Ghana–Togo border separates the Ewe people from their ritual spaces and objects. In Nyive, a border town divided into Ghana Nyive and Togo Nyive, these…

Adotey, Edem

The Century’s Firstborn: Intimate History in the Aftermath of Nineteenth-Century Islamic Revolutions in Central Mali

In 1864, Umar Taal, one of the most consequential figures of nineteenth-century West Africa, perished in Maasina (Mali), a region he had conquered two years prior.…

Thiam, Madina

A Note on Photographic Archival Collections on Northern Ghana

This note offers a preliminary survey of archives containing photographic material – both digitized and nondigitized – related to northern Ghana. Despite the region’s historical marginalization,…

Cristofaro, Domenico

African and Asian Writings from Mozambique: Uncovering Indigenous Records in a Portuguese Colonial Archive

In the course of seeking indigenous documentation in a European-centered colonial archival repository, we uncovered a collection of African sources that highlight the literary work of…

Pereira, Matheus Serva

Archival Patchwork: Stitching Social Relationships in Colonial South Africa

The recovery of subaltern experiences in colonial contexts requires more than reading against the grain and interrogating silences. This paper describes “archival patchwork,” a way of…

Mitchell, Laura J.

Episode 143:

Reginold Royston (University of Wisconsin Madison) on his new book, Pan-African Futurism: Ghana and the Paradox of Technology for Development (University of California Press, 2025). He…

Alegi, Peter | Royston, Reginold

Episode 142:

Paul Landau (History, University of Maryland) on his award-winning book, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries (Ohio University Press, 2022). Landau begins by discussing the book’s origins…

Alegi, Peter | Landau, Paul

Episode 141:

Bernard Moore (University of Basel) discusses his co-authored book, Space is the Ultimate Luxury: Capitalists, Conservationists, and Ancestral Land in Namibia (Brill, 2025, open access). He…

Alegi, Peter | Moore, Bernard

Episode 140:

David William Cohen (Emeritus, History, University of Michigan) discusses his new book, The Weight of Lufu: Essays on Busoga before 1900 (Menha Publishers, 2025), with guest…

Alegi, Peter | Landau, Paul | Cohen, David William

Episode 139:

Dr. Claudia Gastrow (Anthropology, North Carolina State University) on her new book, The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda (University of…

Alegi, Peter | Gastrow, Claudia

Episode 138:

Dr. Benjamin Talton (Director, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University) on his eclectic intellectual journey as an historian of Africa and the Diaspora. The interview begins with…

Alegi, Peter | Talton, Benjamin

Episode 137:

Afis Ayinde Oladosu (Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Ibadan) on being and becoming Muslim in Nigeria and Africa. Dr. Oladosu reflects on his…

Alegi, Peter | Oladosu, Afis Ayinde

Episode 136:

Lauren Jarvis (History, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill) on her new book, A Prophet of the People: Isaiah Shembe and the Making of a South…

Alegi, Peter | Jarvis, Lauren