Table of Contents

List of Maps xiv


List of Plates xv


Acknowledgments for the Second Edition xvii


Acknowledgments xviii


1 Introduction: Understanding the Contours of Africa’s Past 1


A Brief History of the Study of Africa 5


Land 8


People 12


Part I Polity, Society, and Economy: Ingenuity and Violence in the Nineteenth Century 17


2 Western Transitions: Slave Trade and “Legitimate” Commerce in Atlantic Africa 23


States and Societies during the Atlantic Slave Trade 24


“Illegal” Traffic: The Nineteenth-Century Slave Trade 28


Mineral and Vegetable: “Legitimate” Commerce 32


Change and Continuity in Forest and Savannah 35


3 Eastern Intrusions: Slaves and Ivory in Eastern Africa 42


Commercial Horizons: Slaves and Ivory 43


Maritime Empire: Zanzibar 48


Statehood, Conflict, and Trade (1): The Lacustrine Zone 52


Statehood, Conflict, and Trade (2): Northeastern Africa 59


4 Southern Frontiers: Colony and Revolution in Southern Africa 65


African State and Society to around 1800 65


War, Revolution, and the Zulu Impact 67


Cape Colonialism: White Settlement and the “Native Question” 71


Voortrekkers: White Communities in the Interior 74


Balances of Power to around 1870 75


Part II Africa and Islam: Revival and Reform in the Nineteenth Century 77


5 Revival and Reaction: North African Islam 81


Old and New Identities: Brotherhoods of the Desert 81


Trade and Conflict in the Mediterranean World: Ottoman and European Frontiers 82


Changing Society (1): The Maghreb 86


Changing Society (2): Egypt 89


6 Jihad: Revolutions in Western Africa 94


Islam in Western Africa to the Eighteenth Century 94


The Wandering Fulani 96


Prophets and Warriors 97


7 The Eastern Crescent: The Islamic Frontier in Eastern Africa 103


Swahili Islam: Coastal Frontiers in the Nineteenth Century 103


Islam in the Central East African Interior 105


Cross and Crescent in Northeast Africa 106


Islam on the Nile 108


Part III Africa and Europe: Commerce, Conflict and Co-option, to c.1920 113


8 The Compass and the Cross 119


Interested Gentlemen and Learned Bodies: Explorers and Exploration 119


Creeping Hegemony and the Invention of Africa 123


European Missionary Activity in Africa to around 1800 125


Evangelical Humanitarians: Missionary Revival 126


The Christian Impact on Culture, State, and Society 129


Mission and Empire 134


9 “Whatever Happens . . .”: Towards the Scramble 139


Africa and Theories of Imperialism 140


Race and Culture 142


Disorder and Civilizing Violence: Political and Economic Justifications 145


10 Africans Adapting: Conquest and Partition 150


Explaining the “Conquest” 150


Spears and Water: Violent Resistance 155


Histories Old and New: Colonialism and Historical “Knowledge” 165


Realities Old and New: Colonialism and Political “Knowledge” 168


Bush Wars and Distant Shadows: Africa in Global War 175


Part IV Colonialisms 183


11 “Pax Colonia”? Empires of Soil and Service 189


Monopolies on Violence 190


Slaves and Labor 193


Cash Crops 194


White Settlement 199


Industry 201


Social Change and Emergent Crisis 204


Hearts and Minds 207


Environment and Medicine 210


12 Hard Times: Protest, Identity, and Depression 218


Making Tribes 218


Emergent Protest in the Islamic World 221


Salvation and Resistance: The African Church 223


Class and Tribe: The Industrial Complex 224


Cash Crops, Rural Crises, and Peasant Protest 227


Other Voices 230


13 Battles Home and Away: Africa in Global War (Again) 236


The War in the Continent 236


Shifts in Politics and Society 241


Part V The Dissolution of Empire 245


14 The Beached Whale: Colonial Strategies in the Postwar World 251


Postwar Africa and the International Climate 252


Economic Policies and Visions, c. 1945–50 253


Political Plans, c. 1945–50 256


15 Conceiving and Producing Nations 259


The Widening Horizons of Belonging 260


Tensions and Transitions: From Political Consciousness to Political Parties 261


Irresistible Force and Immovable Object: Nationalists and Settlers 268


A Time of Contrasts 273


16 Compromising Conflict: Routes to Independence 276


Debate and Debacle: “Constitutional” Transfers of Power 276


Violence: Growth, Form, and Impact 286


From Suez to Sharpeville, and Beyond: The End of High Imperialism 291


Part VI Legacies, New Beginnings, and Unfinished Business 297


17 Unsafe Foundations: Challenges of Independence 303


Building the Nation (1): Economy and Society 303


Building the Nation (2): Polity 310


Political Stability and Islam 316


Crowded House: Africa and the Cold War 320


18 Violence and the Militarization of Political Culture 328


The Military in African Politics 328


The Politics and Cultures of Insurgency 332


Expanding Military Horizons 337


19 Rectification, Redemption, and Reality: Issues and Trends in Contemporary Africa 339


Africa and the Post-Cold War World 339


Democracy and Authoritarianism: Trends in Governance 343


New Wars, Old Problems 349


Body and Mind 352


Economic Predicaments: Assessing “Growth” and “Development” 355


Further Reading 363


Index 365

About the Author

Richard Reid is Reader in the History of Africa at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He isthe author of Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda: Economy,Society and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (2002), War inPre-Colonial Eastern Africa (2007), and Frontiers ofViolence in Northeast Africa (2011), as well as numerousarticles on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century history of eastand northeast Africa.