Introduction : African histories : past, present, and future / Richard Reid and John Parker -- Key themes in African history. Ecology and environment / James McCann ; Demography and disease / Shane Doyle ; African slave trades in global perspective / Pier M. Larson ; States and statelessness / Walter Hawthorne ; Ethnicity and identity / Richard Waller ; Warfare and the military / Richard Reid ; The African diaspora / John Parker -- The colonial encounter. African colonial states / Heather J. Sharkey ; Law, crime, and punishment in colonial Africa / Richard Roberts ; Work and migration / Emily Lynn Osborn ; Chieftaincy / Justin Willis ; Between the present and history : African nationalism and decolonization / Jean Allman -- Religion and belief. Islam / Marie Miran-Guyon and Jean-Louis Triaud ; Christianity / David Maxwell ; Indigenous African religions / Robert M. Baum ; New religious movements / Sean Hanretta -- Society and economy. Education and literacy / Carol Summers ; Women and gender / Barbara M. Cooper ; Urbanization and urban cultures / John Parker ; Health and healing / Nancy Rose Hunt ; Youth / Nicolas Argenti and Deborah Durham ; Economic growth / Morten Jerven -- Arts and the media. Visual cultures / Sidney Littlefield Kasfir ; Music in modern African history / Viet Erlmann ; African literary histories and history in African literatures / Stephanie Newell ; Communications and media in African history / James R. Brennan
Summary:
This book critically reflects upon the current state of the field of modern African history. It focuses on the history of the continent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although also looks back to the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Its aim is to consider the evolution of the field and to set out where, after fifty years of sustained research, it has arrived. To do so, each of its twenty-six chapters explores a particular theme, organized in five sections: Key Themes in African History; The Colonial Encounter; Religion and Belief; Society and Economy; and Arts and the Media. publisher
The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History represents an invaluable tool for historians and others in the field of African studies. This collection of essays, produced by some of the finest scholars currently working in the field, provides the latest insights into, and interpretations of, the history of Africa - a continent with a rich and complex past. An understanding of this past is essential to gain perspective on Africa's current challenges, and this accessible and comprehensive volume will allow readers to explore various aspects - political, economic, social, and cultural - of the continent's history over the last two hundred years. Since African history first emerged as a serious academic endeavour in the 1950s and 1960s, it has undergone numerous shifts in terms of emphasis and approach, changes brought about by political and economic exigencies and by ideological debates. This multi-faceted Handbook is essential reading for anyone with an interest in those debates, and in Africa and its peoples. While the focus is determinedly historical, anthropology, geography, literary criticism, political science and sociology are all employed in this ground-breaking study of Africa's past. -- Publisher description
