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PAST AND PRESENTISM: THE ‘PRECOLONIAL’ AND THE FORESHORTENING OF AFRICAN HISTORY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2011

RICHARD REID
RICHARD REID
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
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Abstract

This article considers the marginalization of precolonial history from mainstream Africanist scholarship in recent decades, and argues that this can be understood in the context of a scholarly culture that attributes an exaggerated significance to the history of the twentieth century. The article highlights some of the work that continues to be done on Africa's deeper past, with a view to demonstrating the enormous value of such research in elucidating present-day issues. It also argues, however, that work on the modern period is preponderant, and that there is a clear tendency toward historical foreshortening, evidenced in recent scholarship on such topics as conflict and ethnicity.

Keywords

colonialhistoriographyprecolonialpostcolonial
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , July 2011 , pp. 135 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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