A very well informed and sharply stated historiography... should be in every historiography student's kitbag. A tour de force... it made me think a great deal. Terence Ranger, The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies You will finish this book better informed, with a better understanding of Africa and a clearer idea of the questions. Robert Giddings, Tribune This small book is a smart and stimulating essay exploring issues of history, sources and methods, Africa in the world, colonialism and postcolonialism, and the past in the present as a means of introducing students and others to academic thinking about African history. Tom Spear, Journal of African History

1. The idea of Africa; 2. Africans: diversity and unity; 3. Africa's past: historical sources; 4. Africa in the world; 5. Colonialism in Africa; 6. Imagining the future, rebuilding the past; 7. Memory and forgetting, past and present