Africa: A Short History - Softcover

Collins, Professor Of History Robert O

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1558763732 ISBN 13: 9781558763739

Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2010

Synopsis

This is a concise but sweeping account of the African past, its peoples, and their institutions. The book attempts to provide an overview of African history without getting bogged down in details and data. This approach is very useful for general readers who seek to gain an understanding of the major trends and developments, and for teachers who plan to supplement this text with primary sources depending on the emphasis of the course. Beginning with the dynasties of the Nile valley, Collins explains the importance of language in identifying the enormous human diversity of the Africans, the evolution of African societies into kingdoms and empires through new social structures, the introduction of Christianity and Islam, and the migrations of various groups. The book then describes the appearance of the Europeans in the fifteenth century and the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. It continues with the brief but traumatic period of colonial rule and the nationalist movements for independence that ensued. Finally, it accounts for the struggles of Africans in recent years, including civil conflict, military dictatorships, and ethnic insurgencies, as the newly independent states of the continent mature. Robert O. Collins, University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of eighteen books.

About this title

About the Author:

About Robert O. Collins: Robert O. Collins, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of Shadow in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1919-1956 and The Waters of the Nile: Hydropolitics and the Jonglei Canal, 1900-1988, as well as 24 other books.

Review:

"Robert O. Collins, already well-known for his "Problems in African History" (Markus Wiener, 1992) and "Documents from the African Past" (Markus Wiener, 2001), has presented us with an elegantly written narrative that takes us from prehistoric times to contemporary Africa in fewer than 250 pages. Needless to say, the text is concise, and it is precisely for its brevity that it is important for the readers to understand what Collins has achieved in this work....Given its characteristics, this book will be a valuable tool for teachers and graduate students. Certain chapters can also be useful for course reading in introductory courses, although these need to be carefully chosen. Finally, historians of Africa will also benefit from reading this text. Like any good work of synthesis it will encourage reconceptionalization and reassessment and thus will contribute to the exploration of old and new questions." -- African Studies Review

"Robert O. Collins, already well-known for his "Problems in African History" (Markus Wiener, 1992) and "Documents from the African Past" (Markus Wiener, 2001), has presented us with an elegantly written narrative that takes us from prehistoric times to contemporary Africa in fewer than 250 pages. Needless to say, the text is concise, and it is precisely for its brevity that it is important for the readers to understand what Collins has achieved in this work....Given its characteristics, this book will be a valuable tool for teachers and graduate students. Certain chapters can also be useful for course reading in introductory courses, although these need to be carefully chosen. Finally, historians of Africa will also benefit from reading this text. Like any good work of synthesis it will encourage reconceptionalization and reassessment and thus will contribute to the exploration of old and new questions." ---African Studies Review (April 07)

A lament that repeatedly comes across in contemporary policy studies on higher education is that top professors in almost all disciplines spend too much time doing research on increasingly narrow, specialized topics, denying to the undergraduate student and the general reader the benefit of their erudition regarding the broader themes of their disciplines. Such is not the case of Robert Collins, Professor Emeritus of African History at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a distinguished expert on the history of the Southern Sudan. Collins' wide variety of publications, including this Short History, stands as proof of his capacity to write insightfully--over a career spanning more than forty-five years--on general as well as highly specialized topics. Professor Collins established his reputation with The Southern Sudan 1883-1898: A Struggle for Control (1962), his revised Yale PhD disserta-ion, and reaffirmed it with Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1918-1956 (1983). Alone or with collaborators, Collins has also written or compiled a number of volumes intended for undergraduate survey courses in African history, particularly his Problems in African listory: The Precolonial Centuries, now in its third edition. Professor Collins must have had his "Problems..." book in mind when structuring the present volume. He presents the history of Africa coherently--from the dawn of humankind to the present--in only 232 pages, alternating between detailed descriptions of key issues, followed by broad generalizations that lead to more rounds of detailed descriptions, and then more generalizations. This recurring pattern begins with a short Introduction and runs through six chapters covering (i) "Prehistoric Africa"; (ii) "Ancient and Medieval Africa"; (in) "Islam, Trade, and States"; (iv) "Europeans, Slaver --African Studies Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1558763732
• ISBN 13: 9781558763739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 258