In the Netherlands there is an active community of Africanist scholars, numbering about 200 to 250. They work mainly in universities and other research institutes, but also in increasing numbers for government ministries (notably of Foreign Affairs and Development Co-operation), NGOs, and other aid organisations. Fields in which Africanists are strong are history, anthropology and geography, and to a lesser extent development sociology, medical science, law, comparative politics and religious studies. The following survey is necessarily a selective one.

African Studies in the Netherlands can pride itself on a long history only if we include the many travellers, traders and missionaries active in African regions before the twentieth century. The scholarly study of the continent seriously started a few decades later than in other European countries: after the Second World War, when an Africa Institute was founded (in 1946, see below) and the first special professorial chair in African ethnology was instituted at Leiden University.

Research in the African humanities and social sciences presupposes an organised infrastructure of primary source materials - a network of archives, libraries, and museums where the raw materials of research are housed, ordered and safeguarded. For a variety of historical and contemporary reasons, the research infrastructure that scholars take for granted in northern countries is often weak and sometimes non-existent in Africa. Unequal north/south power relationships during and after colonialism have resulted in the scattering of a sizable portion of the African documentary and cultural heritage in collections beyond the borders of Africa. For the rich resources remaining in Africa, contemporary African development needs have sometimes put the creation and maintenance of an adequate institutional infrastructure toward the bottom of the list of national priorities. Africa Research Central is the response of two concerned academics to what we perceive as a worsening crisis.

For a long time, indeed as long as I can recall in my many years working for the magazine West Africa, I have been struck by how many writers, researchers, and students preparing theses for masters degrees or doctorates found incredible use for the material in the magazine. It was brought home to me vividly when reviewing a book called The World and Nigeria by the late Suzanne Cronje; I was astonished by the hundreds of footnotes referring to items in West Africa. It is true the book referred particularly to the period of the civil war, when I know myself that the magazine took its responsibilities as a paper of record very seriously, running almost throughout a ‘war diary’ chronicling the day by day happenings in the war, albeit largely from the federal side, distilled from a mixture of Nigerian newspapers, news agency material and other special sources.

Ethiopia's military history dates to the dawn of recorded history. During the Aksumite Kingdom, which emerged at the beginning of the Christian era, there were numerous military campaigns to the east, south, and west of Aksum. In the 6th century AD, an Aksumite army invaded the southern tip of Arabia. During the 1527-43 period, Ethiopian soldiers fought against Ahmed ibn Ibrahim el Ghazi (1506-43), who also was known as Ahmed Grãn, the ‘left handed’. He was an Islamic zealot who had declared a jihad against Ethiopia's Christians. Shortly after Gran's defeat, Ethiopia embarked upon a series of campaigns against the Galla (now known as Oromo) people who were seeking to invade northern Ethiopia from their southern homelands.

This discussion of official publications relating to Africa in the Public Record Office (PRO) concentrates on those to be found among the records of the Colonial Office, although some other departments are touched upon. The Colonial Office required governors of British dependencies to send a variety of publications and returns to London. In 1817 they were instructed to forward annual details about civil and military offices in their territories, with names and salaries of office holders. Five years later they were asked to submit various types of statistical data entered into blank books with 22 printed headings supplied from London.