African History: a very short introduction (review)

This is an elegant and carefully crafted work, which will be an invaluable starting-point for university students new to African history, as well as for interested outsiders. Rather than attempting to summarize a long list of dates, events and processes in too short a space, the book offers a reflection on the very idea of 'African history'. It discusses how ideas of Africa, and changing concerns within African states, have informed different approaches in African historiography. Parker and Rathbone also manage to inform the reader about key dynamics in African history, as they have been represented by differently positioned historians, anthropologists, intellectuals and politicians, African and non-African. The authors made a ruthless selection of sources and topics, achieving a delicate balance between general statements and specific examples. The text is supported by 29 carefully selected photographs, which effectively illustrate some of the points discussed in the book.

The book contains seven short chapters. The first explores 'the idea of Africa'. The second chapter is on 'diversity and unity' and this, in addition to a discussion of the complexity and diversity of pre-colonial Africa, examines issues of race, ethnicity, and identity. Chapter 3 discusses historical sources. Chapter 4, on 'Africa in the world', deals with longstanding economic and cultural connections between parts of Africa and broader world history, and here we find a discussion of slavery and the slave trade. The focus on historiography disappears temporarily in Chapter 5 on 'colonialism in Africa', which offers a rather conventional discussion of colonial rule. Chapter 6 deals with post-colonial Africa, the decolonization of African history, and the current debate on the post-colonial state in Africa. Chapter 7, on memory and forgetting, offers useful reflections on the nature of history, and ends with a vigorous defence of African history as essential to understanding the many challenges faced by the African continent.

This work engages critically with earlier traditions of African historiography, and makes a conscious effort to counter negative stereotypes and representations of Africa. It effectively highlights current trends in the study of African history, such as the recent emphasis on identity, slavery and heritage, and the declining relevance of the nation state as unit of analysis. While reading the essay, we found that we were in broad agreement with nearly every paragraph. This is perhaps unsurprising, as what Parker and Rathbone offer us here is a consensual view of early-twenty-first century mainstream African history. Even the few critiques of established paradigms are nuanced and part of existing debates. This is possibly the main limitation of this work. It summarizes a view of African history that has emerged primarily in a number of British and North American universities, and in African universities variously associated with them. Such a reduction is perhaps unavoidable for a 'very short introduction', but it could have been discussed self-reflexively, and a greater diversity of positions could have been at least acknowledged at the outset. Some openings toward non-Anglophone debates would have enriched this overview; that important Francophone contributions to African historiography are ignored completely is particularly surprising for a work that, in spite of its concision, claims generality of scope. In any case, these minor points do not detract seriously from the value of this brilliantly structured synthesis, which invites its readers to read – and think – further.