Customer Reviews

Africa since 1800

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Africa Since 1800 (5th edition) details Africa since the 1800s as the title states. First the book starts off with historical and religious differences between the different African countries. Then it goes into Europe's colonization of Africa, and the various wars fought and the minerals and resources in each country. Afterwards the road to independence and life after colonization. Because of colonization and the lack of educational institutions in Africa, the different countries lack behind the rest of the world in many things. In addition, the high rate of HIV/AIDS in various parts of the continent kills 20 to 30 year olds and leaves many children as orphans. I bought this book so I could learn about the history of the diverse continent of Africa as well as current events, this book contained both. Also there are many interesting facts and figures such as in the year 2000, there were 10 million phones across Africa and half of them were in South Africa (pg 372 paperback edition). The paperback edition has 382 pages of reading. This book covers the complete continent of Africa and is a valuable and informative read.

I used approximately 3/4 of this text in order to teach/create a new course on the Scramble for Africa for my high school students. The book provided the students with detailed information grouped into geographical categories of Africa. It also clearly linked cause and effect and relationships among events. As any text, it could be a bit dry and sometimes hard to follow for high school students due to the amount of details provided, but it did a particularly great job explaining the evolution and revolution of South Africa. I intend to continue using it and if you're a teacher considering a text for this time period, this was by the far the best I could find that focused on this time period - 4 1/2 stars! Feel free to contact me for thoughts on teaching about this amazing continent - I learned a lot during this first-time teaching process and look forward to learning more when I teach it again.

Weighing in at less than three hundred pages on a history as convoluted and mysterious to Americans as that of Africa it still manages to convey at massive amounts of information. This is also it's main weakness dumping extras like style and readability it gets incredibly frustrating at times. The subject is fascinating though. The sections on the approaches taken by the various holding countries to release their holdings and transfer rule are fascinating.

I moved to Nigeria in 2010 and was looking for something to help me understand the basis of tribalism, colonialism, and the current political condition of Africa. This books delivers on all fronts. Great overview, and as an academic text, not too dry. From the book, you have a good primer on Africa, and can seek out specific detailed further study.

This is an excellent survey of Africa since 1800. It covers every region and every country pretty well. Also, it covers the various forms of colonialism very well.