Introductory description

This module offers an introduction to the modern social and political history of sub-Saharan Africa. The course spans the nineteenth-century precolonial period, colonial rule, and the postcolonial period. We begin by discussing the idea of ‘Africa’, before examining political authority in the nineteenth century; African trade and commerce after the ending of the slave trade; the establishment of colonial rule and the effects of colonialism on African societies; the growth of anti-colonialism and African nationalisms; decolonisation and the formation of postcolonial states; democratisation and ‘development’ in Africa.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1

1. No Class/Introduction week
2. Introduction: Chronology and Themes
3. Slavery and Slaving in Africa
4. State, Society and Trade in C19th East Africa
5. Jihad in the West African Savannah
6. Reading Week
7. Social and Political Change in C19th Southern Africa
8. From Slavery to ‘Legitimate Commerce’ in West Africa
9. The ‘Scramble’ for Africa
10. The Colonial State and Ethnicity

Term 2
11. Colonialism and the ‘Civilising Mission’
12. Peasants or Proletarians? 1890s-1940s
13. The New Colonialism, 1945-1960
14. The Rise of African Nationalism, 1940s-1960s
15. South Africa, 1890-1960

1. Reading Week
2. Challenges after Independence, 1957-1975
3. Soldiers and the State, 1960-1980
4. The ANC and the End of Apartheid, 1960-1994
5. From Debt to Democratization, 1980-2000

Term 3
21. Rwanda and the Great Congo War, 1994-2004
22. Africa Since 1994
23. New African voices: Film/Documentary Screening and Discussion

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Gain a broad understanding of key themes within African history and Africa’s position within global historical trends.
• Identify interdisciplinary approaches to and historiographical debates on the period since 1800, with particular emphasis on anthropology and political science.
• Identify and engage with a range of relevant primary materials, including online resources, particularly exploring questions related to the use of oral history and oral tradition.
• Gain interpersonal and communication skills through seminar group work and discussions
• Devise well-defined essay topics, collect relevant data from a variety of sources and present results in an effective fashion.

Indicative reading list

• Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge, 2002).
• Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison, 1992)
• Toyin Falola, Nationalism and African Intellectuals (Rochester NY, 2002)
• Toyin Falola & Christian Jennings (eds.), Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed (Rochester NY, 2004)
• Bill Freund, The African City: A History (Cambridge, 2007)
• Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton, 2000).
• John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge, 2007)
• Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (Oxford, 2005)
• Curtis Keim, Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (Boulder, 2008)
• Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton,1996)
• John Phillips (ed.), Writing African History (Rochester NY, 2005).
• Richard Reid, A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present (Oxford, 2009).
• Andrew Roberts (ed.), The Colonial Moment in Africa: Essays on the Movement of Minds and Materials, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 1990).
• David Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge, 2004)
• Megan Vaughan, Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Cambridge, 1991)
• Luise White, Speaking With Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley, 2000)
• Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, 1997)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Interdisciplinary

Students will read material from anthropology, political science, and sociology

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.