Historical approaches to Africa
Megan Vaughan
Wednesdays 2pm-4pm
Course requirements:
1.
Active participation in all classes (20%)
2.
Each student will be responsible for two short class presentations. We will assign these during the first session. You will prepare short analytic papers for each of these two classes, critically reviewing the literature on the reading list. These papers will be circulated to instructor and classmates in advance of the class. (40%)
3.
Longer paper (c5000words) on a topic of your choice. Topics to be discussed with me in advance. Papers due 21 st May.

In this course we take a historical perspective on a range of issues affecting sub-
Saharan Africa today. We’ll begin by examining the nature of political power in precolonial Africa and its relationship with demography, environment,the impact of the slave trade and its abolition. We’ll then move on to address a range of topics including:
-the role of colonialism in transforming African economies and societies
- artistic production and historical knowledge
-the impact of the world religions
-currents in African political thought in the twentieth century
-aid and ‘development’, wealth and poverty
-population, environment and climate change
- gender and sexualities
- the new ‘scramble’ for African resources
Throughout the course we’ll critically examine questions of the production of knowledge about Africa and ask what a longer-term historical perspective has to offer for analyses of critical contemporary issues.
General background reading:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: African in the philosophy of culture , London 1992
Frederick Cooper, Africa in the World: Capitalism, Empire, Nation-State , Harvard
2014
Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: the past of the present , Cambridge 2002
John Parker and Richard Rathbone, African History: a very short introduction ,
Oxford, 2007
John Iliffe, Africans: the history of a continent , Second edition, Cambridge 2007.
Richard J. Reid, A history of modern Africa, 1800 to present , 2 nd edition, Oxford
2011
Crawford Young, The Postcolonial state in Africa , Madison, 2012
Toyin Falola and Christian Jennings, Africanizing Knowledge: African Studies
Across the Disciplines , New Brunswick 2002
Stanford University has a very good gateway to internet resources on Africa: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html

Week 1 : September 3
For this first class we will all read Frederick Cooper’s latest book, which began life as a set of lectures at Harvard University. In it, Cooper examines both major themes in the modern history of Africa, including, crucially, its intellectual history. Please read the whole book:
Frederick Cooper, Africa in the World: Capitalism, Empire and Nation-State ,
Harvard 2014.
Also read:
Stephen Ellis, ‘Writing Histories of Contemporary Africa’, Journal of African
History , 43 (2002), 1-26
In this class we will also make arrangements for the rest of the course.
Week 2: September 10: Africa in the longue durée: themes and methodologies
This class focuses on the deeper history of the African continent and the methodologies used to uncover that history. We’ll ask whether the study of the
African continent is blinded by ‘presentism’, and we’ll examine debates in archaeology, on the uses of historical linguistics and of oral testimony. The reading for the class includes recent studies by historians of pre-colonial Africa on such topics as violence, motherhood and healing.
R. Reid, ‘Past and Presentism: the precolonial and the foreshortening of African history’, Journal of African History , 52 (2011), 135-55
David Schoenbrun, ‘Conjuring the modern in Africa: durability and rupture in histories of public healing between the Great Lakes of Central Africa’, American
Historical Review , 111 (2006), 1403-1439.
David Schoenbrun, ‘Mixing, Moving, Making, Meaning: Possible Futures for the
Distant Past’, African Archaeological Review , 29, 1 (2012), 293-317
Rhiannon Stephens, A History of African Motherhood: The case of Uganda 700-
1900 , Cambridge, 2013, Chapter 1: Writing Precolonial African History (pp17-
38)
A.B. Stahl, ‘The archaeology of African History’, International Journal of African
Historical Studies , 42 (2009), 241-255
A.B. Stahl, Making History in Banda: anthropological visions of Africa’s past ,
Cambridge, 2001, chapters 1-3.

Neil Kodesh, ‘History from the Healer’s shrine: Genre, Historical Imagination and
Early Ganda History’, Comparative Studies in Society and History , 49 (2007), 527-
552
Thomas Spear, ‘The interpretation of evidence in African history’, African Studies
Review , 30 (1987), 17-24
Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History , 1985, chapters 1, 2 and 7
Week 3: September 17:People, power and politics in pre-colonial Africa
In this class we examine the nature of political power in pre-colonial Africa. We will discuss the influential argument that sub-Saharan Africa was characterised by labour scarcity and that its societies were therefore organised to maximise
‘wealth in people’. We’ll discuss regional variation in ‘resource endowments’ and in political cultures and examine the effects of the international slave trade.
Iliffe, Africans , chapters 5, 6, 7, 8
Reid, A History of Modern Africa, chapters 2 and 3
Cooper, Africa in the World
Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life , Cambridge, 1990, chapters 6 and 7
Megan Vaughan, ‘Africa and the Birth of the Modern World’, Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society , 16 (2006), 143-162
Gareth Austin, ‘Resources, techniques and strategies south of the Sahara: revising the factor endowments perspective on African economic development,
1500-2000’, Economic History Review , 61 (2008), 587-624
Jane Guyer, ‘Wealth in People, Wealth in Things’, Journal of African History , 36
(1995), 83-90
On Asante:
T.C. Mc Caskie, State and Society in precolonial Asante , Cambridge, 1995, chapter
2
T.C. Mc Caskie, ‘Denkyira in the Making of Asante, 1600-1720’, Journal of African
History , 48 (2007), 1-25
Ivor Wilks, Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante , 1993, chapters 2 and 3.
On Buganda, Bunyoro and Great Lakes:
Richard Reid, Political Power in precolonial Buganda: Economy, Society and
Warfare in the nineteenth century , Oxford, 2002, Part 2

Kodesh, (as in Week 2)
Stephens, History of African Motherhood , chapters 4 and 5
H. Hansen, ‘Mapping Conflict: Heterarchy and accountability in the ancient capital of Buganda’, Journal of African History , 50 (2009), 179-202
Shane Doyle, Crisis and Decline in Bunyoro: population and environment in
Western Uganda , chapters 1-2
Jan Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda , 2005, chapters 1-4
GC CLOSED SEPT 24 : NO CLASS
Week 4: October 1 st : African art as history – and as art
Visit to the Metropolitan Museum
READING: (to follow)
Week 5: October 8 th : Colonialism (1)
In this class and in Week 6 we examine the legacies of colonialism in sub-
Saharan Africa. Colonial rule was relatively short-lived in most parts of the continent. Does this mean that its effects were superficial? Has the impact of colonialism been over-stated?
In this class we focus on the political economy of colonial rule, comparing
‘peasant’ based economies of West Africa and Tanganyika with colonies of white settlement and mine-based industrialisation.
Iliffe, Africans , chapters 9 and 10
Reid, A History of Modern Africa , Parts 4 and 5
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge and History ,
Berkeley, 2005, 3-33
Frederick Cooper, ‘Conflict and Connection: rethinking colonial African history’,
American Historical Review , 99 (1994), 1516-1545
J.F. Ade Ajayi, ‘Colonialism: and episode in African history’ in L.H. Gann and P.
Duigan (eds), Colonialism in Africa , 1870-1960 , volume 1 (1969)

Mamoud Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism , 1996, chapters 1-3
Peasant production:
John Iliffe, A History of Modern Tanganyika , Cambridge, 1979, chapters 5, 9, 10,
11, 12
Gareth Austin, ‘The Emergence of Capitalist Relations in South Asante c 1916-33’,
Journal of African History , 28 (1987), 259-279
Gareth Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: from slavery to free labour in
Asante, 1807-1965 , Rochester, 2005 , chapters 11, 12, 15.
Sara Berry, Fathers work for their sons: accumulation, mobility and class formation in an extended Yoruba community , Berkeley, 1985
Settler capitalism and labour
J. Crush, A. Jeeves and D Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire: a History of
Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines , 1991 : chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
Patrick Harries, Work, Culture and Identity: Migrant Labourers in Mozambique and South Africa c1860-1910, London 1994, Parts 2 and 3.
John Lonsdale and Bruce Berman, ‘Coping with the contradictions: the development of the colonial state in Kenya’, Journal of African History , 20 (1979),
487-505
Paul Mosley, The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and
Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1963 , Cambridge, 1983, Introduction, chapters 2, 4, 5.
Charles van Onselen, Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-
1933 , London 1976, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4.
Week 6: October 15 th : Colonialism (2)
In this class we focus on modes of governance in colonial Africa, comparing
French and British rule. We will analyse ‘indirect’ methods of rule and examine debates around coercion. How far were colonial regimes dependent on the active participation of sections of African society? Did this ‘collaboration’ contribute to the ethnicisation of African politics?
(see general reading for week 6) PLUS:

F.D.J. Lugard, ‘Principles of Native Administration’ and ‘Methods of Native
Administration: Political Officers and Native Rulers’, reprinted in Robert O.
Collins (ed), Historical Problems of Imperial Africa (2007), 105-30
Thomas Spear, ‘Neo-traditionalism and the limits of invention in British colonial
Africa’, Journal of African History , 44 (2003), 3-28
Bruce Berman, ‘Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: the Politics of Uncivil
Nationalism’, African Affairs , 97 (1998), 305-341
Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilise: The Republican Idea of Empire in French West
Africa, 1895-1930 (1997), chapters 1, 3, 7.
Christopher Gray, Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial Africa (2002), 94-133
B. Lawrence et al, Intermediaries, interpreters and clerks: African employees in the making of colonial Africa , 2006: Introduction and chapters 4-7
K. Mann and R. Roberts (eds), Law in Colonial Africa , 1991, Introduction and
Chapter 1.
Emily Osborne, ‘”Circle of Iron”: African employees and the interpretation of colonial rule in French West Africa’, Journal of African History , 44 (2003), 29-50.
Week 7: October 22 nd : Political futures
In this class we examine the history of African political and intellectual thought in the late twentieth century. Fred Cooper (amongst others) has recently emphasised that not all Africans imagined the future in terms of the nation state
– for some a reconstituted and reformed empire seemed the way forward. In this class we’ll examine those debates, as well the histories of African socialist, nationalist and pan-Africanist thinking.
Frederick Cooper, Africa in the World: Capitalism, Empire, Nation-State , 2014, chapters 2 and 3
Gary Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism between the two world wars , 2005: Part 3
G. Martin, African Political Thought , 2012, chapters 4-6
Toyin Falola, Nationalism and African Intellectuals , 2001. Parts 1 and 2
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth , 1963: ‘On the Pitfalls of National
Consciousness’ and ‘On National Culture’.
K. Nkrumah, I speak of freedom: a statement of African ideology , 1961, chapters
13-15 and 21

A Biney, The political and social thought of Kwame Nkhrumah , 2011, chapters 2,
6, 7 and 8
J. Nyerere, ‘Freedom and Unity’, Transition , 14 (1964), 40-45
I Shivji, ‘Nationalism and pan-Africanism: decisive moments in Nyerere’s intellectual and political thought’, Review of African Political Economy , 39 (2012),
103-116
Leopold Senghor, On African Socialism , New York 1964: ‘The African road to socialism’ and ‘Theory and Practice of Senegalese socialism’.
A. Cabral, ‘Identity and Dignity in the national liberation struggle’, Africa Today ,
19 (1972), 39-47 and ‘National Liberation and Culture’, Transition , 45(1974), 12-
17.
Week 8: 29 October: Development, knowledge and power
This class examines the idea of ‘development’ and its practice in late colonial and postcolonial Africa. Development interventions in Africa have been widely critiqued, from both the right and the left. In this class we examine the debates around international aid, NGOS, and the role of the state in African economic development. We’ll examine the effects of structural adjustment policies on
Africa and the arguments of those who argue that African development is best left to ‘the market’.
Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940 , (2002), chapters 1,3.5.
Frederick Cooper, ‘Modernising bureaucrats, backward Africans and the development concept’ in F. Cooper and R. Packard (eds), International
Development and the Social Sciences , 1997, 64-92 and 291-319
G. Rist, The History of Development , London, 1997, chapters 1-5, 1-14
James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘development’, depoliticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho , 1990, Introduction and chapters 2 and 3
M. Van Beusekom, Negotiating development: African farmers and colonial experts at the Office du Niger, 1920-1960 , 2002. Introduction and chapters 1 and 2.
P. Lal, ‘Self-reliance and the state: the multiple meanings of development in early postcolonial Tanzania’, Africa , 82 (2012), 212-34
Crawford Young, The Postcolonial State in Africa , 2012, chapters 1, 5,6.

Nicholas van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis,
1979-1999 (2001), Introduction and chapters 1, 2,3,5
Nicholas van de Walle, ‘Political Liberation and economic policy reform in Africa’,
World Development , 22 (1994), 483-500
Alex de Waal, ‘Democratizing the aid encounter in Africa’, International Affairs ,
73 (1997), 623-639
Ha Joon Chang, Kicking away the ladder: development strategy in historical perspective , 2003.
James Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the neoliberal world order (2006),
Introduction and chapters 1-3
O. Barrow and M. Jennings, The Charitable Impulse: NGOs and Development in
East and North-East Africa , 2001, Introduction and chapters 3, 5, 7.
D. Moyo, Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa , 2009.
William Easterly, The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators and the forgotten rights of the poor , 2013, chapters 1, 2,4.
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents , 2002, chapters 1, 2,6,7.
Week 9: November 5: Religion in colonial and postcolonial Africa
In this class we examine the importance of religious organisations and belief systems to the social and political history of modern Africa. We trace the impact of Christianity and Islam and assess the arguments for the role of spiritual beliefs in Africa’s contemporary politics.
T.O. Ranger, ‘Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa’ , African
Studies Review , 29 (1986), 1-69
Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, ‘Religion and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa’,
Journal of Modern African Studies , 36 (1998), 175-201
Harri Englund, (ed) African Christianities: Beyond the Religion-Politics
Conundrum , 2011
B. Meyer, ‘Christianity in Africa: from African-Independent to Pentecostal-
Charismatic Churches’, Annual Review of Anthropology , 33 (2004), 447-474
B. Meyer, ‘If you are a devil, you are a witch and, if you are a witch, you are a devil’, Journal of Religious History , 22 (1992), 98-13

Ruth Marshall, ‘Mediating the global and the local in Nigerian pentecostalism’,
Journal of Religion in Africa , 28 (1998)
P. Gifford, ‘Some recent developments in African Christianity’, African Affairs , 93
(2004).
J. Hunwick, ‘Sub-Saharan Africa and the world of wider Islam: historical and contemporary perspectives’, Journal of Religion in Africa , 26 (1996), 230-257
R. Loimeier, ‘Patterns and peculiarities of Muslim reform in Africa’, Journal of
Religion in Africa , 33 (2003), 237-62
Felicitas Becker, ‘Rural Islamism and the “War on Terror”: a Tanzanian casestudy’, African Affairs , 2006: 583-603
P. Geschiere, The modernity of witchcraft (1997), chapters 1, 5,6
Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious thought and political practice in Africa , 2004, chapters 5,6,7.
H.L. Moore and T. Sanders, Magical Interpretations, material realities: modernity, witchcraft and the occult in postcolonial Africa , 2001, chapters 1,3,4.
Week 10: 12 November: Gender and sexualities
In this class we take a historical perspective on current debates on gender and sexuality in Africa. How far did colonial regimes transform gender roles and sexualities?
Mark Hunter, Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender and Rights in South
Africa , 2010, chapters 1,3,5,6
Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African society , 1982, parts 2 and 3
Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi , 1990
Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe eds, Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in
African Homosexualities , 2001, 1-21, 197-223, 223-243, 267-279
Marc Epprecht, Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea , 2008
Sokari Ekine and Hakima Abbas (eds), Queer Africa Reader , 2013
Sylvia Tamale, African Sexualities: a reader , 2011, Chapters 1, 7, 9, 11

NO CLASS ON 19 th NOVEMBER
Week 11: 26 November: Poverty, wealth and the new ‘scramble for Africa’
Africa is a continent widely associated with the problem of poverty, yet in the last decade or more many parts of the continent have been experiencing high growth rates. In this class we examine the historical patterns of poverty and wealth creation on the continent and ask whether the ‘new scramble’ for African resources will produce sustainably higher living standards for the continent’s growing population.
John Iliffe, The African Poor: A History , 1987, chapters 9,10, 13,14
Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: the past of the present , 2002, chapters 5 and
7
Jane Guyer, Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa , 2004, Part
111
Gareth Austin, ‘The “reversal of fortune” thesis and the compression of history: perspectives from Africa and comparative economic history’, Journal of
International Development , 20 (2008), 996-1027
A.G. Hopkins, ‘The new economic history of Africa’, Journal of African History , 50
(2009), 155-177
N. van de Walle, African economies and the politics of permanent crisis, 1979-1999 ,
2001, Introduction and Chapters 1-2.
D. Bryceson, ‘The scramble in Africa: reorienting rural livelihoods’, World
Development , 30 (2002), 725-739
H. White and T. Killick, African Poverty at the Millennium , Washington 2001
Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass, Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa ,
2005, Introduction and chapters 7, 9, 10.
James Ferguson, ‘Formalities of Poverty: thinking about social assistance in neoliberal South Africa’, African Studies Review , 50 (2007), 71-86
P.Bond, Looting Africa: the economics of exploitation , 2006, chapters 1-4
World Bank, World Development Reports available at http://wdronline.worldbank.org
Lorenzo Cotula, The Great African Land Grab?
: Agricultural Investments and the global food system , 2013 (whole book)

Chris Alden, China in Africa: Partner, Competitor, Hegemon?
, 2007
Padraig Carmody, The New Scramble for Africa , 2013.
Week 12: 3 December: class presentations