African historiography is a branch ofhistoriography involving the study of the theories, methods, sources, and interpretations used by scholars to construct historiesof Africa. Most African societies recorded their history viaoral tradition, resulting in a lack of written records documenting events beforeEuropean colonialism. African historiography has therefore lent itself to contemporary methods of historiographical study, the utilisation of oral sources, and the incorporation of evidence derived from variousauxiliary disciplines, differentiating it from other continental areas of historiography due to its multidisciplinary nature.

Oral historians utilised various sources from their communities in crafting socially-consolidated histories which were then passed down through generations, withtraditions serving as contemporary documents of messages from the past. Early written history about Africa was largely undertaken by outsiders, each of which had their own biases. Colonial historiography wasEurocentric and propagated racist theories such as theHamitic hypothesis. African historiography became organised in the mid-20th century, and initially involved the refutation of colonial narratives.Nationalist histories sought to generate patriotism and sustain the multi-ethnicnation states, and African historiography saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach alongsidearchaeology andhistorical linguistics. Following growingpessimism about the fate of the continent,Marxist thought became popular, and contributed to a more critical study of colonialism. From 1981UNESCO began publishing theGeneral History of Africa, edited by specialists from across the continent. The 1980s saw universities struggle amid economic and political crises, resulting in the migration of many scholars (largely to the United States), and the discipline remains critically underfunded. Historians of Africa in the 21st century focus more on contemporary history than precolonial history, and are less ideological than their predecessors as the discipline has taken on a more pluralist form.

There are vast amounts ofecological,cultural,linguistical, andreligious diversity in Africa.Valentin Mudimbe notes that the idea of Africa was first made and used by non-Africans, particularly Europeans. The concept was appropriated bydiasporic Africans duringabolitionist movements in the 19th century as intellectuals sought an "African homeland", with their removal from the continent enabling them to view it as a whole. This planted the roots ofpan-Africanist thought, however for most it was the shared experience ofcolonial rule andresistance to it that fostered a unified African identity.^[1]

In Africa, historiography has traditionally been undertaken byoral historians,^[2][3] who can range from professional specialists, such as thegriots of West Africa, to amateur generalists, such as thebulaam ("men of memory") of theKuba people.^{[4]: 36–9} In accordance withAfrican cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of human and their environment, the gods, and their ancestors.^[2] In African societies, the historical process is largely acommunal one, with eyewitness accounts,hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionallyvisions, dreams, and hallucinations crafted into narrativeoral traditions which are performed, sometimes accompanied by music, and transmitted through generations.^{[2][4]: 12 : 48} In oral tradition, time is sometimesmythical and social, and ancestors were considered historical actors.^{[a][5]: 43–53}Origin myths serve multiple purposes, helping to define a group's identity and forge sociocultural alliances, and provide thefulcrum on which a group's religious ideology rests.^[6]: xix Traditions can be recorded in the form ofepics (which use formal speech),narratives (everyday speech), andpoetry (which tends to beformulaic and memorised word for word).^{[4]: 13, 15} They offer a socially-consolidated history, and often include the origins of institutions, embedding political authority. Instateless societies, clan histories predominated.^[7]

SomeAfrican writing systems have been developed or adapted in ancient and recent history. One of the most notable ancient scripts were thehieroglyphs ofAncient Egypt, which are attested to have been used for historical records fromc. 1580 BCE.[8] Following the discovery of theRosetta Stone in 1799, historians were able to decipher hieroglyphs and access a new field of Ancient Egyptian history,^[9] however this work was undertaken predominantly by European historians. Some ancient external sources includePeriplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 230 CE) andPtolemy'sGeography (c. 140 CE).[10]^: 637 InAbyssinia, during theAksumite period (c. 100 –c. 960 CE) histories were inscribed inGeʽez onstelae,thrones, andobelisks, and recounted a ruler's reign, recording various historical events such as military campaigns, diplomatic missions, and acts ofphilanthropy.^{[11]: 14–15} From the 13th century, written imperial chronicles predominated, such as theChronicles of the Wars of Amda Sion (14th c.).^{[12]: 230 [13]: 28} Following the spread of Islam, there are also plenty of written records inArabic from Islamic scholars such asal-Masudi,al-Idrisi,Leo Africanus,al-Bakri,Ibn Battuta, andIbn Furtu. They included observations of local societies, and sometimes utilised oral sources, embodying bias towards Muslim rulers while denigrating non-believers.^[7] As of 2005,Turkish-language sources remained largely unused as no-one had systematically explored theIstanbul archives, with the same being true of North Africannational archives.^{[b][14]: 226–7} In West Africa and theSwahili coast Africans used Arabic or adapted the Arabic script intoAjami for their languages, and works were written inAkan,Fula,Yoruba,Hausa, andSwahili. Some were chronicles which literarily recorded oral tradition, such as theKilwa Chronicle (16th c.),Timbuktu Chronicles (17th c.),Kitab Gonja (18th c.),Funj Chronicle (early 19th c.), andKano Chronicle (c. 1880s).[15]^{: 626 [10]: 640}

European written records about the coastal regions proliferated during theirexploration of Africa from the 15th century. They typically had strong prejudicial and Christian biases,^[16]: 255 and portrayed anexotic image of Africa, primitive and often at war with itself.^[17] Most 16th-century records were written inPortuguese, which the Portuguese strictly censored so as to protect theirmonopoly on African business from trading rivals, and most were destroyed in the1755 Lisbon earthquake.^[16]: 257 Records through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries were mostly written inEnglish,French,Dutch, and later,German. Authors aimed to promote trade, and so included information on trade goods,routes, markets, control of trade, sources of supply and production techniques etc. (important foreconomic history). Some historical works includeJob Ludolf'sHistoria aethiopica (1681),Silva Corrêa'sHistoria de Angola (1782), andArchibald Dalzel'sHistory of Dahomy (1793).^{[13]: 29–30} There are also sources fromEuropean Christian missionaries (especially in the 19th century). However reporting onAfrican traditional religions was poor, and authors often sought to 'expose' perceived 'errors' and 'barbarisms'. A minority of authors learntAfrican languages and made meaningful records important forsocial history.^[10]: 639 Amid theEnlightenment in the 18th century, European attitudes towards other cultures began to change.Hegel's now infamousstatements in hisLectures on the Philosophy of World History (1837) encapsulated 19th-century orthodox European thought about African history.^{[18][13]: 30–1}

Since most African societies usedoral tradition to record theirhistory, there was littlewritten history of the continent prior to the colonial period. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from anentirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence ofwhite supremacism.^[19] Colonial historians considered Africansracially inferior,uncivilised,exotic, and historically static,^[15]: 627 viewing their colonial conquest as proof of Europe's claims to superiority, reinforced bysocial Darwinist principles. The topic was initially left to ex-members of colonial regimes who had a rapport with kings and elites,^[20] however imperial/colonial history later entered into the fringe of the profession.^{[13]: 32–3, 36} Some works includeCharles Lucas'sThe Partition & Colonization of Africa (1922) andGabriel Hanotaux'sHistoire des Colonies Françaises et de l'Expansion de la France dans le Monde (1930).^{[21][22][13]: 33} The most widespread genre of colonial narrative involved theHamitic hypothesis, which claimed the inherent superiority of light-skinned people over dark-skinned people. Colonisers considered only "Hamitic Africans" to be "civilised", and by extension all major advances and innovations in Africa were thought to derive from them. Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, who claimed that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa.^[15]: 627 Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.^[19] Theliberal tradition, championed by figures such asWilliam Miller Macmillan, sought to criticise colonialism and racial segregation.^[23] The 1940s and '50s saw the study of African history split from colonial history, as institutions were set up such as theSchool of Oriental and African Studies by theUniversity of London, producing a new generation of Africanists.^[24]

Some indigenous works bylocal historians during this period includeCarl Christian Reindorf'sThe History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1895),Samuel Johnson'sHistory of the Yorubas (w. 1897, p. 1921),^[c]Apollo Kaggwa'sThe Kings of Buganda (1901),Musa Kamara'sZuhūr al-Basātīn (w. 1920s),Jacob Egharevba'sA Short History of Benin (1934),Akiga Sai'sHistory of the Tiv (1935),Paul Mbuya'sLuo kitgi gi timbegi (1938),Samuel Josia Ntara'sMbiri ya Achewa (1944/5), andJohn Nyakatura'sKings of Bunyoro-Kitara (1947).^{[7][15]: 627–8 [14]: 234} In North Africa, the 1930s saw indigenous schools of historians established in light of growing nationalist andmodernist Islamic movements.^[13]: 25The Uganda Society foundedThe Uganda Journal in 1934 which aimed to increase knowledge about Uganda and preserve oral traditions.^[25] There were various proto-nationalist historians who fiercely combatted notions of European superiority, such asA. B. Horton,E. W. Blyden,J. W. Sarbah,J. E. Casely-Hayford, andJ. B. Danquah, however their works resembled propaganda and today hold less authority than some of those already mentioned.^{[13]: 38–9}

Thestruggles for independence in the 1950s and '60s were mirrored by a movement towards decolonising African history. The new African elite now had the daunting task of achieving in the historical field what they had done in the political one.^[15]: 629 Historians' post-colonial works were characterised by theirnationalism andAfrocentrism, aiming to reverse colonial thought and refute colonial narratives which degraded their culture.^[27] At the time, many did not think African history was possible and it was common for enthusiasm to be dismissed. The period saw a methodological revolution regarding the unprecedented widespread use of oral sources, alongsideauxiliary disciplines.^[24]

In the mid-20th century, members of theIbadan School of History in Nigeria, led byKenneth Dike andJacob Ade Ajayi, pioneered a new methodology of reconstructing African history usingarchives supplemented withoral traditions, destabilising the notion that Africa's history was essentially its interactions with Europeans.^{[7][27][28]: 212} Other influential schools on the continent included theLegon School in Ghana which published onAkan history, and the SenegambianDakar School whereCheikh Anta Diop instigated an "intellectual revolution" against FrenchEgyptologists by linkingAncient Egypt to "Black Africa". TheDar es Salaam School in Tanzania led byTerence Ranger aimed to show modern nation states as continuations of the African past, andBethwell Allan Ogot pioneered writing about stateless societies.^[29][7][30] Africanists such asBasil Davidson,Roland Oliver, andCatherine Coquery-Vidrovitch also made important contributions. NationalHistorical Associations were founded along with journals such asJournal of the Historical Society of Nigeria,Afrika Zamani, andKenya Historical Review, accompanying the European journalsJournal of African History,Cahiers d'Études Africaines, and laterHistory in Africa.^[7][31] Works through the 1960s and '70s relied upon a wealth of data to conclusively prove that Africans possessed historical consciousnesses and conceptualised, preserved, and transmitted their history through oral tradition.^{[23][15]: 628–32}

In 1961,Jan Vansina publishedOral tradition in which he made the case for the validity of oral sources as historical sources, becoming one of the most influential works written about African history. Oral tradition continued to be heavily utilised in the reconstruction of African history over the next decade, despite a vigorous assault on the validity of oral sources bystructuralists and some historians maintaining that African history prior to the 19th century was not possible. While a small number of historians dismissed their concerns, most accounted for them by applying a more critical approach in the analysis of oral sources, and consulted other disciplines such asarchaeology andhistorical linguistics.^{[32]: 171–2 [15]: 629–30} This movement towards utilising oral sources in a multi-disciplinary approach culminated inUNESCO commissioning theGeneral History of Africa, edited by specialists drawn from across the African continent, publishing from 1981 to the present.^[33][28][34] Meanwhile, North African scholars and intellectuals found themselves in an identity crisis, and gravitated towards theArab/Islamic world. TheGeneral History of Africa andThe Cambridge History of Africa's coverage ofAncient Egypt ensured it was viewed in an African context.^[27] Despite all this, in the process of refuting European myths about African history, nationalist historiography embraced Western views of what constitutes history, largely focussed on narrow political themes from above, and sometimes underplayed the impacts of colonialism.^{[15]: 628–32}

The mid-1960s saw growingpessimism as various socio-political problems such as corruption, economic mismanagement, political instability, social malaise, andneo-colonialism endured, and the failure of African elites to deliver on their promises became apparent. Celebration of African achievement was replaced by fierce critique of the ruling elites and their neo-colonialist collaborators, and the termAfricanist gained negative connotations. The dual problem of poverty and dependency bore a newMarxist historiographic ideology focussed on development. In 1972Walter Rodney, building on previous works, introduceddependency theory to African historiography by publishingHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa. It stated that Africa's natural development had been taken off course by the slave trade and colonialism into one of permanent dependency on outside forces.^[35] He also attackedmodernisation theory, arguing that Africa must reject the international capitalist system in order to develop.^[36]: 318 This new school which combined Marxist historiography with dependency theory broadened the discipline's domain from nationalist historiography's narrow focus.^[24]

The onset of the "era of disillusionment" in the 1980s saw African universities struggle and fail amid economic and political crises, resulting in the migration of many great scholars. Some nationalist historians accepted responsibility for the model of the nation that they had projected, which supported nationalist regimes and idealised leaders and power rather than production and commoners.^[37][24] Works such asLucette Valensi'sTunisian Peasants in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century (1985),Judith Tucker'sWomen in Nineteenth Century Egypt (1985), andElizabeth Isichei'sA History of African Societies to 1870 (1997) embodied a new impetus to writehistory from below.^{[15]: 630–1}

The widespread mood of introspection saw the formulation ofpostmodernist approaches to African historiography. The most notable work of this school wasValentin Mudimbe'sThe Invention of Africa (1988), which argued that African scholars derived their ideas and interpretations from Western academic discourse, and that they ought to reject the Western view of what constitutesscientific knowledge.^[15]: 632 Several scholars have questioned whether writing history based on Western epistemologies can ever be relevant and meaningful to African communities.^[37] The 1990s saw the abolishment ofapartheid in South Africa, allowing Black students to attend formerly all-White universities and creating a crisis inSouth African historiography asAfrikaners struggled to come to terms with their history.^[12]: 239 Thecollapse of communism and failedsocialist experiments in Africa produced revisionist responses fromneo-Marxist historians.^[15]: 633Local histories of clans, communities, villages, and administrative divisions flourished, often written by amateur historians for a local audience.^[17] Emphasis on thecultural embedding of knowledge has seen the domain of historical inquiry extend. Conversely, the turn away from material concerns caused the field ofeconomic history to be neglected from the 1980s to early 2000s in spite of its enduring relevance.^{[38][39][36]: 321, 326} Major challenges persisted, such as "academic labour migration" (particularly to the United States) and overreliance on Western publishers inhibiting the growth of institutions in Africa.^[3]

In the present day, the discipline includes the various schools of thought in a pluralist tradition. The study of history in Africa is critically underfunded, with governments in the search foreconomic development favouringhard sciences and technology-based disciplines, consolidatingbrain drain. The new generation of historians are less ideological than their predecessors. In a bid to stay relevant they focus more on contemporary history and emphasise Africans'agency amideconomic imperialism, neglecting early history, partly due to the complex and costly methodology required and the rapid dying of oral tradition.^[40][41] There has been an increased focus onethnicity at the expense ofsocial class. An important question to answer is what to do about the Western-derived nation states and institutions.^[7] The dying of oral tradition aselders andknowledge keepers have been gravely impacted by theCOVID-19 andHIV-AIDS epidemics has generated urgency in applying community-based approaches to archaeological research.^[41] Histories are most often written in English or French rather than African languages, harming their accessibility to local audiences, with Jan Vansina opining that scholars seek approval from Western colleagues regarding technical standards.^[7]Funso Afolayan writes that African historians ought to prioritise African audiences.^[15]: 633 Despite efforts by multiple successive generations, scholars are yet to formulate an Africanphilosophy of history, distinct and autonomous from the Western tradition.^[7][23][17]

Crafted in 2013, theAfrican Union'sAgenda 2063 includes the production of anEncyclopedia Africana as one of its flagship projects, which aims to cover the "foundations in all aspect of the African life including history, legal, economic, religion, architecture and education as well as the systems and practices of African societies".^[42][43]

InDecolonizing African History (2024),Toyin Falola writes that Eurocentric education systems, and all Eurocentric institutions for that matter, initially introduced by colonial regimes as foci ofcultural and ideological imperialism, must beAfricanised, done in part by the incorporation and application ofAfrican epistemologies. He emphasises the role played by academia and supranational organisations in achieving this. He says that thought processes and patterns must be derived from African experiences and realities, and research carried out based on the needs and values of respective societies. He argues that oral traditions and early indigenous works should be heavily prioritised in the re-narration of African history. He says that this decolonisation would uncover African solutions to African problems and recover an African identity people can be proud of.^[44]

Periodisation of African history was rooted inEurocentrism, and initially centred around Africa's interactions with outsiders rather than on its internal developments.^[33][45] There is no agreed upon periodisation for African history, with the difference in temporal stages of state formation between parts of the continent generating disagreement.^[33][27] The Eurocentric concepts of thethree ages andprehistory have received strong criticism, however they remain in use inAfrican archaeology despiteGraham Connah's effort of a "total history" in his work onBorno.^[46]Prehistory's traditional meaning of covering time up to the first written record (based on the old view that history cannot exist without written sources) has been deprecated, and historians now consider history to be based on evidence.^{[47][48]: 1}Basil Davidson considered Africa's ancient period to be until 1000 CE,^[27] howeverCorisande Fenwick has posited the time of theArab conquests (the 7th century) as an endpoint.^[49]Roland Oliver andAnthony Atmore proposed "Medieval Africa" as from 1250 to 1800 (having revised the start date back from 1400),^{[27][50]: vii} and chose 1800 as the start date for "Modern Africa".^[51] Despite this, the Eurocentric terms "ancient", "medieval", and "modern" have long been criticised as failing to represent African realities and capture its complexity.^[52]: 25

Oral tradition is a form ofhuman communication in which knowledge, art, ideas andculture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.^[53][54] Most African societies usedoral tradition to record their history. They generally have a reverence for the oral word, and have been termedoral civilisations, contrasted withliterate civilisations which pride the written word.^[d][57] Oral traditions differ from written texts in that they are more roundly subject to the sensory experience of the listener(s).^[58]: 202 InAfrican epistemology, the epistemic subject "experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, intuitive, abstractive understanding, rather than through abstraction alone, as is the case inWestern epistemology" to arrive at a "complete knowledge", and as such oral traditions,music,proverbs, and the like were used in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.^[59]

Historians collect and transcribe oral traditions viafieldwork, a practice that was initially foreign to historians who would usually spend most of their time sifting througharchives and libraries.^[e]Vansina stressed the importance of publishing all recorded versions, fieldnotes, and information on the recording situation, however noted few do so.^{[4]: 58–63} Most of the early tapes and transcriptions weren't submitted to public depositories, gravely impacting verifiability and nullifying future critique of interpretation. Researchers are often not fluent in the local language, and employ interpreters to translate questions and answers, harming the communication of meanings and understanding.^{[32]: 170, 173, 177} Vansina differentiated between apparent meanings, intended meanings, and historical and present-day aims of the speaker's message, and said that interpretation requires a near-native understanding of the language and culture.^{[4]: 83–93} Individualised interviews tend to be preferred because in group performances, which consist of the narrator and audience sharing and shaping the story, improvisation to entertain may be prioritised over accuracy of the tale. Occasionally, traditions are influenced by written works or incorporate recently acquired information, calledfeedback.^{[32]: 180, 183} As oral tradition rarely incorporates chronological devices,lists of rulers have been crucial to establishing dates and chronologies.^[7] This is done via generational averaging, with the most common length chosen for generations being 27 years. In some cases, a ruler or event is mentioned in contemporary written sources of whose dates are known. Some lists have been known to grow over time, harming their credibility.^[32]: 186Barbara Cooper emphasises the creativity of the oral poet, and criticises theformulaic approach saying that the meaning sits in the performance, not necessarily captured through analysis of a transcription or interpretation of the words.Karin Barber said that oral traditions enact struggles and power, not only of historical individuals but also of the oral poet in that the oral 'text' only exists for the speaker and listeners.^{[58]: 200–1}

There have been various academic debates surrounding oral tradition. The first in the 1960s involved Jan Vansina and his students developing a rigorous approach to recover the past from oral traditions, counteracting scepticism and outright dismissal of the concept of African history. This was successful, despite not engaging and cooperating with African-American movements aroundoral history. The second focussed on the argument that oral traditions consisted of faithful memories of past events, which faced criticism fromfunctionalists who argued that oral traditions function to reinforce present-day realities and give relatively little information about the past (called the "presentist critique"),^[f] andstructuralists who emphasised the mythological and symbolic elements of oral tradition (called the "cosmological critique"). The cosmological critique was answered byJoseph Miller'sThe African Past Speaks (1980), in which historians emphasised the need to pay attention to how cultural understanding, political struggle, and memory shape traditions, and explore and analyse discrepancies between traditions which tend to signal problems, shifts, struggles, and loud silences. On the other hand, the presentist critique has proved pertinent and has been harder to dismiss.^{[58]: 193–7} Afolklorist critique of Africanist historians emphasised the role of the individualtraditional oral historian in the crafting and preservation of oral traditions (and the possibility of infusion of autobiographical or experiential information, necessitating inquiry about the storyteller's life), rather than Africanists' focus on the influence of institutions, and the importance of anemic (insider) approach, rather than anetic (outsider) approach where the traditions are transcribed and interpreted from an outsider/European perspective.^[60]

Due to the lack of written sources, African historiography has often consulted and incorporated evidence from various disciplines, includingarchaeology,linguistics,anthropology,geography,political science,economics,psychology, andliterary studies.^{[10]: 644–5} Confidence in the reconstructions of African history is driven in part by the interplay between disciplinary methods, in how they reinforce or challenge conclusions derived from one another.^[61]: 191 Historians of Africa aim to acquire basic understandings of these disciplines in order to use evidence from them effectively and critically.^{[10]: 644–5}

Archaeology is the study of past peoples andcultures through the recovery and analysis ofmaterial culture and the interpretation of it.^[64] Materials uncovered include human remains, tools, weapons, pots, structures, and religious or artistic objects, with interpretation of them seeking to reconstruct what often is a lost culture or civilisation.African archaeology has contributed the most to African history out of the auxiliary disciplines. Archaeology covers all time periods apart from contemporary times,^{[10]: 645–6} andradiocarbon dating has been crucial in providing dates.^[7]

There are differingtheories on how archaeological study should be undertaken. One istraditional culture history, which aims to describe and classify materials, and has been useful for providing chronological sequences. Another isprocessual archaeology which seeks to explain and understand cultural and technological change, viewing cultures as complex systems composed of economic, religious, subsistence, and technological subsystems, tailored to their environments andecosystems. This approach has been particularly valuable for African archaeology with its focus on local factors and developments, rather than external factors. Criticisms of processual archaeology informed the formulation ofpost-processual archaeology, which views cultures as constituting expressions of thought, arguing that actions can only be explained by inquiry about ideas and intentions. This approach emphasises cultural organisation in the use of space and production of material culture, noting similarities between related cultures.Marxist narratives have been particularly influential in historical reconstruction in Eastern and Southern Africa.^{[65]: 52–6} In cases where oral or written records are available, archaeology has helped to fill in the gaps.^{[10]: 645–6} Oral traditions have commonly been used to locate archaeological sites.^{[61]: 171–2} On the flipside, archaeology has also often served to verify and affirm oral sources, such as with the cases ofKoumbi Saleh andLake Kisale.^{[10]: 645–6}Charles Thurstan Shaw andMerrick Posnansky pioneered including community members andoral repositories in archaeological research, which has proved pertinent and grown in popularity as oral traditions are rapidly dying.^[41]Post-depositional theory argues that information present in the archaeological record is always decreasing, thus advising urgency, which is especially pertinent due to the persistent underfunding and neglect African archaeology receives from governments and non-African specialists.^{[65]: 57, 61}

Historical linguistics is the study of how languages develop, involving their rate of change, divergence, borrowing, diffusion, relationships, and classification. It can establish a common origin for languages and estimate the time of their divergence (called alinguistic stratigraphy), which can be interpreted as the time a united people separated;^[10]: 647glottochronology in particular has been useful for providing rarely-found dates.^[7] Languages are composed of all the necessary words to express knowledge, experience, and cultural practice by its speakers, and this vocabulary is a product of their history. A language's survival depends on its speakers maintaining a group identity or commonality, and so a long-lasting language maps onto a long-lasting societal continuity. Furthermore, a history of related languages is the history of related peoples.^{[66]: 86, 90} Historical linguistics provides evidence for cultural contacts, their physical environments, and contents of those cultures through the analysis of diffused features and reconstructed old vocabularies.^[10]: 647 By comparing the present-day vocabularies andphonetics of related languages,proto-languages can be reconstructed and one can identify meaning shifts which often resulted from historical developments, andloanwords which provide evidence for the nature of interactions between peoples. It can also account for the historical development of the people'straditional knowledge andreligious beliefs.^{[66]: 91, 94–5, 97}

Historical linguistics has contributed significantly to African history, second to only archaeology, however the vast area ofAfrican languages has received little attention from experts. Reconstructions and deductions often attract scepticism and even controversy, and historians tend towards caution when using conclusions derived from them. One prominent case has been reconstruction of theproto-Bantu language and theBantu expansion.^[10]: 647 Some works based on linguistic evidence includeJan Vansina'sPaths in the Rainforests (1990),David Schoenbrun'sA Green Place, A Good Place (1998), andChristopher Ehret'sAn African Classical Age (1998).^{[66]: 108–9}

Anthropology is the study of humanity, includinghuman behavior,human biology,cultures,societies, andlinguistics, in both the present and past.^[67] It became a colonial science involving colonisers studying their subjects in order to gain a better understanding for greater control. Anthropology has helped historians better understand social and political relationships, historical events, and peoples' cultures. It can be crucial to understanding early political and economic structures, their evolution, the impact of colonialism, and their modern-day form. Understanding of political, economic, and kinship organisation can contribute to refuting narratives influenced by theHamitic hypothesis.^{[10]: 647–8}

Physical anthropology is thebiological study ofhuman andprimate evolution,adaptation, andvariation.^[68] It is best known for informing the theory ofbiological human races; while this has since beenrendered obsolete, the issue of dividing humans into units of analysis remains contentious, with scholars favouring ethnicities or communities. Physical anthropology can provide evidence about health and disease, ways of life, diet,microevolution, and genetic relationships.^{[69]: 113, 116, 131–2}

Geography is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena ofEarth.^[70] It is split intohuman geography andphysical geography, the latter of which has contributed the most to African history. It informs understanding of how a people's environment has influenced them and their social evolution, and environmental factors have been very consequential in shaping the continent's history. For instance,grasslands andwoodlands in particular favouredpopulation expansion.^[10]: 648Botany is the study ofplants, and is important foragricultural history. It can ascertain which plants weredomesticated historically, and studyhuman plant use, such as intraditional medicine.^{[71]: 153, 162} Most histories include a preliminary chapter on the "land and people", and include maps which aid understanding and give a real-world impression.^[10]: 648

Nationalist historiography infuses historical writing withnationalism. Historical memory shapes nationalist sentiment on the basis of a shared past, creating acultural identity, which in turn produces and legitimisesnations.^[72] African nationalist historiography's primary mission is to generate patriotism and sustain the nation states. Crucially it aimed to reverse dehumanising colonial thought, especially the notion that Africans had to be divided into tribes and separated in order to be governed, instead promoting unity. Inter-group relations were prioritised, whileethnic rivalries were marginalised. It sought to uncover Africa's contributions to the world, emphasising leadership qualities and institutions in precolonial states, and their integrity and historicity prior to colonisation. It pioneered the use of oral sources, seeking their legitimisation, however largely usedarchives. In attempting to reverse the colonialist notion that colonisation was the most important phase of African history, which implied a "barbaric past" and "modernising present", nationalist histories often downplayed its impacts.^[24]

The onset of the "era of disillusionment", as economic development struggled in combination with various internal conflicts, brought tough challenges to nationalist historiography and saw it decline amid growing pessimism andnihilism. Some historians accepted responsibility for the model of the nation that they projected, which supported nationalist regimes and idealised leaders and power rather than production and commoners.^[24][37] Globally, nationalist historiography became unpopular within academic circles during the 20th century, withtransnational histories more recently gaining in popularity.^[72] The new generation of African historians are less ideological, however the nationalist paradigm is still in use by some who confrontneo-colonialist historians, and nationalist voices are included in the discipline's pluralist tradition.^[24]

Liberal historiography aimed to help Africans reclaim their history and write history from an African point of view. The liberal tradition was pioneered byWilliam Miller Macmillan throughout the 1920s, seeking to criticiseracial segregation policies and include Africans as makers of history, contrary to the dominantwhite supremacist historical traditions of the time. He also advocated forsocial history of people's daily lives and concerns. Liberal historiography has been especially influential inSouth African historiography, with liberal historians often sparring withMarxist/radical historians. They developed the practice oforal history, often asking questions to do withsocial change.^[17] South African historiography, due to the country's political situation, lagged behind the rest of the continent in terms of decolonisation.The Oxford History of South Africa (1969–1971) was a landmark publication for liberal historians as the first comprehensive work on South African history that included Africans as agents of history, however its methodology quickly became outdated and, as was the liberal approach, it focussed on political rather than economic issues.Leonard Thompson pioneered the application of the multidisciplinary approach to South African history, including oral sources, in hisSurvival in two worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho (1975). Liberal historiography's goals of African agency and the repudiation of colonialist myths had become outdated by the 1970s, and it declined with the advent of Marxist/radical historiography.^[40]

Marxist historiography is the study and interpretation of history through the lens ofMarxist theory, and involves analysing historical events in relation to social classes and materialistic phenomena.^[73] It maintains that history is shaped by the constant struggle of people against their material and social contexts.^[74] Marxist thought (or "radicalism") has been highly influential in African historiography. Marxist scholars largely focussed on colonial history, and emphasised theagency of Africans.^[27] Among African scholars, the ideas ofMichel Foucault andAntonio Gramsci regarding the ideology of power, particularly the manipulation of cultural norms in the maintenance of power hegemony, were particularly influential.^{[24][15]: 631} Marxist historiography greatly affected narrative writing and advanced a "cause and effect" interpretation of events, in contrast to them being viewed as a series of accidents or related to divine will.^[74] Differing from nationalist histories, radical histories shifted the weight of anti-colonial struggle from the elites to commoners.^[7]

While the school's generalisations led to the recognition of widespread patterns and the reinterpretation of events (such as theFula jihads andYoruba Revolutionary Wars), they sometimes inhibited the study of specific historical situations and often ignored cultural context. Despite this, Marxist approaches have been crucial in the development of a critical andholistic study of colonialism and Africa's relationship withthe West.^[15]: 631 According to several scholars, they also solidified the point that European conquest and exploitation was the main cause of Africa's underdevelopment.^[74] The Marxist paradigm illuminated mass nationalism and militant resistance to colonialism, but also subscribed to a universalhistory of global capitalism. It has struggled to incorporate African thought, and narratives often found themselves at odds with the experiences and perspectives of the public.^[23]

Post-colonialist historiography studies the relationship between European colonial domination in Africa and the construction of African history, and has its roots inEdward Said's concept ofOrientalism. Western imperialism is viewed as the product of insatiable desire for power over the non-Western world, with this ambition to dominate extending to subjecting cultures to scientific scrutiny. As a result, knowledge produced from this endeavour is invalid as a projection of Western stereotypes and formulations. Another point made is therelativity of true knowledge and itscultural embeddings, discouraging external critique. While Orientalism's characterisation of Western imperialism has come under criticism, themes of relativism have continued inpostmodernism.^[36]: 320

Postmodernist historiography ordeconstruction considers the past to be an ideological product of the present, thus reflecting present power relations and realities. The past is considered to be directly unknowable since traces of it are subject to people's perspectives and subjective interpretation, blurring the line between fact and fiction.^[15]: 631 This approach considersoral tradition to be contemporary ideas about the past.^[g][24] Deconstruction has faced staunch opposition inAfrican studies, as it is perceived to dangerously depart from problems facing the continent and distract the intellectual agenda.^[75]

Critics argue that this particular movement towards an African alternative results in the disintegration of "African" into a vast multitude of cultural identities, having ramifications forpan-Africanism. Historians are challenged with focussing on cultural context while countering the criticism that subscribing to the European-derived idea of "Africa" might render the whole enterprise of African history worthless to the continent's future.^[36]: 321

Social history, sometimes called "history from below", is a field which aims to look at the lived experiences of the past, and uses asociological (and occasionallyethnographic) approach to analyse and interpret historical events. Sources used include archival records, oral traditions, and oral testimonies. African social history more broadly has generally been neglected and left tosocial scientists, with historians usually focussing on small and familiar localities.^{[76]: 287-301}

Oral tradition gives valuable insights to African perspectives and mentalities, which is crucial to social history.^{[77]: 28 [15]: 632} Oral sources collected viaoral history also benefit the study of contemporary history by adding balance to official or canonical narratives fromsubaltern perspectives.^[32]: 187 One focus has been on commoners oragricultural history, which largely utilisedtestimonies. A renowned work isCharles van Onselen'sThe Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine (1996).^[7]

Migrations are a common theme in African history. They are split into voluntary migrations andforced migrations. The study of African migrations requires a multidisciplinary approach, and there remain big gaps in our knowledge. There has been sparse research into much of Africa's migration history.Michael McCormick'sOrigins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce AD 300 - 900 (2002) researched cross-Mediterranean migrations, and included research on North Africa, but there has been no comparable study from an African perspective. TheBantu expansion has been debated over by historians, linguists, archaeologists, paleo-environmentalists, and evolutionary geneticists.^[78] Historiography of theAtlantic slave trade is by far the most developed sub-field on African migrations, however that oftrans-Saharan andIndian Ocean migrations are growing.^[79]

Women's history studies the role women have played in history, with a focus on women of historical significance and on how historical events affected women. It posits that women have been marginalised in the historical record, and aims to counter this. The three main paradigms in African historiography (nationalist,Marxist, anddependency theory) have neglected women's history, and works ongeneral,economic, and evensocial history have had very little to say about women. Historians used to consider African women naturally inferior and helpless victims.African women's history grew rapidly from the 1970s, and has largely focussed on the colonial and postcolonial periods.^[80] There have been three waves, where the first focussed on economic production and agency, the second on the colonial period, and the third on gender, identity, and social struggle.^[7] An initial theory ofmodernity gradually liberating African women fromtradition was rejected.^[80] It has studied urbanisation, informal and formal economic roles, motherhood, sexuality, reproduction, gender meanings, modernity, and public culture among others.^[7] It also considers the historical development of women's culture, including solidarity networks and autonomous social spaces. Political influence of women, whether as rulers or mothers and wives of rulers, is another focus.^[80] Works includeKathleen Sheldon'sAfrican Women: Early History to the 21st Century (2017),Iris Berger andE. Frances White'sWomen in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History (1999),Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch'sAfrican Women: A Modern History (1997), andCheryl Johnson-Odim'sWomen and Gender in the History of Sub-Saharan Africa (2004).^[81]

Urban history studies the history ofcities andtowns, and examines the process ofurbanisation. Scholars generally defineAfrican urban history as the study "of cities in Africa" rather than "of African cities", making them comparable to cities elsewhere with their Africanity considered secondary. Colonisers used to claim that Africa was mostly rural and historically absent of cities.Urban studies is typically veryEurocentric, and Africa has largely been neglected thus far, especially south of theSahara. Scholars located in Africa are at a disadvantage, and often lack institutional access to the latest publications which tend to be expensive. Periodisation is demarcated into "precolonial", "colonial", and "postcolonial", due to colonisation gravely impacting the urbanisation process. Studies of colonial and postcolonial urban history tend to focus on dysfunctions, segregation, and marginalisation. Colonial cities mimicked those ofindustrial Europe by introducingcapitalist systems ofrent and administrative regimes, termed "modern", while pre-existing urban processes and structures, ranging fromcosmology andfamily structure to construction materials, were termed "traditional", howeverpostmodernist thought has largely dismantled thisdichotomy. Local terms for settlements in general provide insight into how to approach the study of precolonial history. The widespread phenomenon of historicalcity-states in Africa requires a different approach to local politics, and favours comparability.^[82]

Art history is the historical study of thevisual arts, and involves "identifying, classifying, describing, evaluating, interpreting, and understanding art products", as well as the study of the historical development of related fields, such aspainting,sculpturing,architecture, andphotography.^[83] From the late-19th century African art products started to appear in European museums, andcurators developed systems for cataloguing and labelling them. It was only after the looting of theBenin Bronzes in the 1897British expedition to Benin that Europeans realised there was art in Africa. The Bronzes appealed to theirnaturalistic tastes and the first scholarly work on African art history wasFelix von Luschan'sBenin Antiquities (1919). From 1905, German and Frenchavant-garde artists recognised African art, and a wave of "delirious enthusiasm" ensued, caring only aboutform and not social context or meaning. Anthropologists entered the fray from 1925, and a specialised field had developed by 1945, followed by archaeologists' input from 1956.^[84]

InArt history in Africa (1984),Jan Vansina called scholars' treatment of African art history "shallow", andHenry Drewal considered it to have been neglected by scholars of African art. As of 2005 the field had no periodisation, and by and large African art was not treated as historically dynamic, compounded by the application ofanachronistic ethnic group terms. The concept of "diaspora" has been applied to art products taken out of their social context.^[85]

Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools fromeconomics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. There are three main schools of thought inAfrican economic history:neoclassical,Marxist, and one centred ondependency theory. The leading journal isAfrican Economic History, founded in 1976.^[86] From the 1980s to early 2000s, Africa rarely appeared in major journals on economic history. Since then, there has been a revival in the study of African economic history, mostly focussed on contemporary history.^[39] Most African researchers are employed in the West due to a lack of opportunities at home, likely reducing the diversity of views.^[86] Some Western scholars engage in whatA. G. Hopkins calls "neocolonial sholasticism".^[86]Gareth Austin criticised the sub-discipline for applying concepts predominantly derived from the European experience to African history, and said there needs to be more intellectual ambition. He also stressed the importance ofcomparative historical research in testing models proposed as universal, and noted that the immense diversity of the continent makes synthesising research into an "African model" challenging.^[87]

Periodisation is split into four periods: the first is from the earliest hominids, through theStone andIron ages, and covers thedevelopment of agriculture; the second begins in the 16th century and revolves around theAtlantic slave trade; the third begins in the 19th century with the abolition of the slave trade and covers thecolonial period; and the fourth coverspostcolonial history from the mid 20th century to the present.^[35]Modernisation theory, which held that underdeveloped "traditional" societies had to be transformed into "modern" ones, dominated the discipline through the 1950s and '60s. It rapidly fell out of favour due to economic crises in the West and historical research uncovering contradictory evidence, creating a vacuum to be filled by dependency theory wherecapitalism became seen as the problem rather than the solution. Approaches from theAnnales school gained currency in African historiography in the 1980s, however now they have mostly been absorbed into other schools.^[86]

The neoclassical approach emphasises trade and exchange systems in African economies, with early pioneers beingKenneth Dike and A. G. Hopkins. Its initial efforts were to disproveEurocentric ideas thateconomic dynamism, markets, and trade did not play important roles in precolonial Africa.Rational choice theory is central to this approach. The neoclassical school has received criticism for focussing too heavily on exchange and neglecting production.^[35]

The Marxist approach applies Marxist economic theory, specifically the theory of "modes of production". Leading scholars includedJean Suret-Canale andCatherine Coquery-Vidrovitch. The approach focusses on production, in contrast to dependency theory's emphasis on external trade.^[86] It considers multiple modes of production able to coexist within an economy and sought to identify indigenous modes of production, with the colonial period characterised by the domination of the colonial mode over precolonial or pre-capitalist modes.^[35] A. G. Hopkins says that its economic models "fitted awkwardly" if at all, and the class paradigm proved unfruitful.^[86]

Dependency theorists emphasiseunequal exchange as a causal factor ofunderdevelopment, and applyworld-systems theory. They posit that Europe created a peripheral form of capitalism geared towards exporting capital rather than cumulative reinvestment, resulting in a rich centre which accumulates wealth to the detriment of a periphery.^[39] Governmental policies informed by this seek to reduce or cut off relations with the West.^[86] Leading scholars includeImmanuel Wallerstein,Samir Amin,Giovanni Arrighi, andCharles E. Alpers. This approach has been criticised for denying Africansagency.^[35]

New economic history applieseconometrics to economic history, and utilises technology able to process large amounts ofquantitative data. Prominent scholars includeDaron Acemoglu,Simon Johnson, andJames Robinson. They advance a "reversal of fortunes" theory, positing that as a result of colonialism, richer regions in 1500 became poorer due to the fashioning ofextractivist and exploitative institutions, while poorer and less populated areas grew richer due tosettler colonialism. This approach has been criticised for not taking into account historical changes over long periods, and for compressing history by presenting century-old events as causal to the present.^[35]

Military history is the study ofarmed conflict and its impact on societies, cultures and economies, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships. Oral traditions rarely give insights into military history.^[88]African military history was neglected throughout the 20th century, in part due to colonial thought and wariness about embracingmilitarism amid various contemporary conflicts. Early on, it focussed on military resistance at the time ofcolonial conquest. In the 1990s social historians began to focus on the lives of soldiers and veterans, improving understanding of the colonial experience. It is only in the last decade that Africanists have begun incorporating this into a separate sub-discipline of military history.^[89]Michelle Moyd calls the representation of African conflicts as "mindless violence" or "irrational" racist stereotypes, whileCharles Thomas andRoy Doron call this "the pernicious myth of anarchic violence". Moyd warns against grand narratives which reinforce these views, such as the trope thatShaka was responsible for theMfecane.^[90]

Most historians followRichard Reid in studying "African dynamic[s] in the use of force and violence in the continent's deeper history", which provides insights into state formation, slavery, and conflict with foreign entities. One focus is to study how people became soldiers. The study ofslave revolts in theAfrican diaspora can offer insights. The evolution of colonial armies into national armies can be studied to better understand civil-military relations. The incorporation ofsocial history also involves the study of Africans' experiences of violence and conflicts.Feminist military history contributes to this, andDahomey offers a rare opportunity to studywomen warriors. Rather than embracing militarism, historians aim to contribute to containing violence by furthering understanding of its origins, manifestations, and institutional dynamics.^[89][90]

Environmental history focusses on the dynamic interaction between theenvironment (nature) andhuman societies (cultures), whereenvironmental change is viewed as steps toward physical and mentaldomestication and conquest. "Declinist" views consider the impact of modernisation on the environment to be too costly and, without intervention, trending towards the death of nature and culture. "Inclinist" views emphasise small-scale development incorporatingtraditional knowledge andtraditional resource management as the key tosustainability. Prior to the 20th century, nature was widely seen as the determiner of the vitality and culture of societies, now calledenvironmental determinism, which was also a common view found in oral traditions. In the 1950s and '60s in Europe, environmentalagency fell out of favour as the use ofscience was considered close to conquering nature, calledcultural determinism.Modernisation theorists viewed scientific knowledge as a mechanism capable of conquering and replacing nature with artificial phenomena.Marxists consideredcapitalistmarket mechanisms destructive tomoral economies andecologies. The idea of a "wild Africa" has been soundly rejected.^[91]

The nature-culture dichotomy has seen strong criticism with some favouring a hybrid view, however it remains popular inAfrican environmental history. Human and culture history originated in Africa and it therefore has unparalleled depth, with the continent having been very hospitable, however this is thought to have changed as the environment became hostile; scholars consider Africa to have been the first victim of theGreat Divergence and its culture to have slowed. Some possible causes include the end of theice ages, thedrying of the Sahara, or theLittle Ice Age. Theslave trade and its chaoticend, immediately followed bycolonisation, theWorld Wars, and therecent population boom have likely contributed. Researchers often attribute famines and epidemics to low domestication of Africa's environment. HoweverEmmanuel Kreike says that domestication is a poor marker for development due to itsEurocentric scientific-evolutionary definition. "Environmental infrastructure" is when the environment is shaped by cooperation between humans and non-humans such that it sustains the life of both, which Kreike says is more applicable to African history.Conservation studies emphasises the closure of communal resources for indigenous peoples and power struggle between colonial governments and their subjects.Postmodernism had a big impact on environmental history, as it encouraged critique of colonial perceptions and the incorporation ofethnohistory and traditional knowledge to inform conceptualisations.^[91]

Animal history aims to centre historical study on animals. It is very nascent, with regional societies only formed in the early 21st century. Historians of Africa have recognised animals as capable of producing change in human history, but specific focus on animals has been very rare. An early criticism of animal historians was regarding theventriloquism of the animal, said to reveal more about the author than the animal, which historians now aim to avoid. The terms "animal-sensitive history" or "multi-species history" are preferred by some. The sub-discipline maintains similarities with various movements in African historiography aimed at recognisingagency, and is sometimes incorporated intoenvironmental histories.^[92]

Following the early ideological traditions ofPan-Africanism (popularised byMarcus Garvey andW. E. B. Du Bois) andNégritude (advocated byAimé Césaire andLéopold Sédar Senghor), in the second half of the 20th centuryAfrican Americans became closely involved and took greater interest in the study of Africa. They posited that the project of African history ought to be tied to the notion of racial liberation from white domination.^[24] This led to the formulation ofAfrocentrism, which sought to challengeEurocentric assumptions and attitudes dominant in academia, such as the notion ofuniversality in contradiction of differingontologies and perspectives more relevant to a particular context. Essentially, it stressed the importance of centring analysis and explanation in African ideas, interests, andpresuppositions. Relatedly,Afrocentricity, coined byMolefi Kete Asante, seeks to ground the study of the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora within their own historical, cultural, and sociological contexts.^[93][94] Afrocentrist histories are rooted in old pan-Africanist visions of racial unity and cultural diffusion, and considerAncient Egypt as having played a central role in African history.^[1] Another idea espoused by Asante, building off of the work ofCheikh Anta Diop, is that Africa should use Ancient Egypt as its foundational source of scholarly inspiration, similar to the roleAncient Greece andRome plays in European scholarship.^[15]: 632

Afrocentrism is largely marginal to mainstream scholarship, and more closely resemblespopular history. Its ideas and the discourse surrounding them have often attracted criticism and controversy. While most scholars recognise the need forAfrican studies to be rooted in African thought, they have warned against usurping discredited notions ofwhite supremacy with discourse ofblack supremacy. Afrocentrist histories remain popular in theAfrican diaspora in the Americas amid an ongoing struggle for respect, equality, and empowerment in their respective societies, and are influential regarding the popular perception of Africa. They often ignore advances made in African historiography in the last half-century, and rely upon crude generalisations andclichés. Few African scholars have shown interest in the subject, indicating the irrelevance of racial discourse throughout much of the continent in the present day.^{[1][15]: 632}

• List of historians of Africa
• Ethiopian historiography
• History of Africa
• African studies
• African philosophy
• List of kingdoms and empires in African history
• The Cambridge History of Africa, a multivolume history published 1975–1986
• General History of Africa, a multivolume history published byUNESCO from 1981–present

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• Historiography of Africa

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