Encyclopedia of African History

(Note: Introduction is taken from uncorrected proofs. Changes may be made prior to publication.)

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 on the continent. The true origins of African higher education can be traced back many centuries to the Islamic universities of North Africa, Timbuktu, and Cairo, while the origins of recorded history itself are to be found in the scrolls of ancient Egypt, probably the oldest recorded history in the world. Beyond the reaches of the Roman Empire in North Africa, the tradition of keeping written records of events, ideas, and dynasties was followed, almost continuously, by the priests and scholars of ancient, medieval, and modern Ethiopia. Meanwhile, preliterate African societies recorded their histories in the oral memories and ancestral traditions that were faithfully handed down from generation to generation. Sometimes these were adapted to suit the political imperatives of current ruling elites, but as the modern academic historian knows only too well, the written record is similarly vulnerable to the interpretation of the recorder.

Before the European incursion at the end of the nineteenth century, literate Africans in West and Southern Africa had appreciated the importance of recording oral traditions and writing the history of their own people. Following the colonial intrusion, however, Europeans took over the writing of African history, and interpreted it primarily as a timeless backdrop to their own appearance on the scene. They brought with them not only the social Darwinism of the imperial project, but also the perspective of their own historical traditions. Thus early colonial historians saw an Africa of warring "tribes" peopled by waves of migration, such as Roman imperialists had seen and conquered in Western Europe some 2000 years previously. To these historians, African peoples had no history of significance and were distinguished only by variety of custom and tradition. Any contrary evidence of indigenous sophistication and development was interpreted as the work of outside (by implication, northern Eurasian) immigration or influence. The origins of Great Zimbabwe (a Shona kingdom founded between 1100 and 1450), originally believed by European colonial historians to be non-African, despite much evidence to the contrary, proved to be the most notorious and persistent of these myths. Despite early academic challenges, these European-constructed myths about Africa's past exerted a dominant influence on approaches to African history until well into the second half of the twentieth century.

Encouraged and supported by a handful of European and North American academics, pioneering Africans seized the opportunities offered by the newly open academic world that emerged after World War II. So began the mature study of African history, which established the subject as a modern, respected, academic discipline. The fruits of this discipline were summarized in two major collective works, written and published primarily in the 1970s and 80s, the Cambridge History of Africa (8 volumes, 1975-86) and the UNESCO General History of Africa (8 volumes, 1981-93).

This 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-reflects the direction toward which contemporary scholarship of African history has moved in recent years. It is an indispensable feature of this work 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 discreet 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, a fascinating period of rich cultural achievements and profound historical developments that occur in the time before the Roman Empire through the European Middle Ages and beyond. Students can find information about the emergence of foraging and food-producing societies, the flowering of the great Egyptian civilization and the development of other, less obviously dramatic, civilizations in the savannahs and forests in all regions of Africa. Attention is paid both to indigenous developments and to the impact of outside influences and intrusions, including the spread of Islam and the slave trade in all its forms, to provide students with the dynamic cultural context of the continent within the many forces shaping human history. Most of the remaining two-thirds of this encyclopedia details the history of each region from the precolonial nineteenth century, through the twentieth-century colonial period that defined the modern states, and takes the user into the postcolonial contemporary period, and the dawn of the new millennium.

How to Use This Book
The Encyclopedia of African History is organized into a series of free-standing essays, most of them approximately 1000 words in length. They range from factual narrative entries to thematic and analytical discussions, and combinations of all these. There are, in addition, a number of longer essays of about 3000-5000 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 the full range of African history. Where debates and controversies occur, these are indicated and discussed. As 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. Thus topics such as Nigeria's Fourth Republic or the civil war and demise of Charles Taylor as president of Liberia are put into their historical context, as are themes such as the disease pandemics of malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Perhaps the most significant feature of the encyclopedia is the 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. Within these multiple-entry composites, the essays are organized in a broadly chronological order: thus Egypt under the Ottomans precedes Egypt under Muhammad Ali. Cross-referencing in the form of See Also's at the end of each entry refer the reader to other related essays. Blind Entries direct readers to essays listed under another title. For example, the blind entry "Gold Coast" refers the reader to the entry on Ghana's colonial period. In addition, a full Index is provided for reference to those items and individuals mentioned within essays, but which do not appear as headwords in their own right. Further Readings at the end of each entry refer the reader to some of the most recent work on the subject.

Other special features include 100 specially commissioned maps, one for each of the 55 modern states, and a further 45 specially designed historical maps, indicating such important features as the Languages of Africa, the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, the Songhay Empire, and the Peoples of the East African Savannah in the eighteenth century. I researched widely in other people's work for the material for these historical maps, in particular Ajayi and Crowder's Historical Atlas of Africa (1985), the various works of the late David Beach for the Zimbabwe plateau of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, and the work of Jan Vansina for the peoples of the Congolese forest of Equatorial Africa by the early nineteenth century. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Catherine Lawrence for drawing the maps and for her patience with my not-infrequent editorial interventions. Any errors of interpretation, however, particularly in the historical maps, must remain mine alone. In addition, 103 illustrations are dispersed throughout, many of them not previously published in a work of this nature.

The encyclopedia consists of nearly 1100 entries, all of them at least 1000 words in length. The original list of entry topics was devised by the editor with the advice of a panel of 30 advisers, all of them established specialists in a particular field of African history, some with decades of experience, not only in the teaching, researching, and writing of African history, but also in the editing and publication of large collaborative volumes. The final decision on the selection or omission of topics remained, however, mine.

A total of 330 authors have contributed the entries to this encyclopedia, and approximately 130 of them are African. About half of the latter are currently working in African universities, and the remainder overseas, mostly in North American universities. Other contributors, besides North Americans, come from Europe, India and Australia. A number of entries from Francophone West Africa, Madagascar, France and Belgium have been translated from their original French.

Acknowledgements
This encyclopedia has taken considerably longer than originally planned, both to write and prepare for publication. Anybody who has worked on collaborative projects, even on a small scale, knows only too well how delays quickly get built into the system. I am grateful for the patience of advisers and contributors, many of whom have inevitably been asked to add last-minute updating to their entries. I am particularly grateful for the help, guidance, and encouragement I received from our team of eminent advisers in the early stages. In addition, the commitment to the project by the large number of contributors was always an inspiration to me, and the whole project is greatly indebted to that handful of contributors who responded so willingly to appeals for yet more work to be produced at short notice. My thanks to Kristen Holt and her team at Routledge Reference, New York, who took up the project at a late stage, trusted my judgment, and completed the work expeditiously. Special acknowledgement, however, is due to the originator of the concept, Mark Hawkins-Dady of Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, who first proposed the project to me, and then, through several years of inspiring and industrious work, saw it through, almost to its final stages. Without him, this book would not have happened. Finally, I dedicate this book to Pippa, my wife, always an inspiration in my work.

Kevin Shillington.
Editor