The student of the history of Africa must turn to the great historians of the twentieth century, such as Joseph Ki-Zerbo, A. Adu Boahen, Cheikh Anta Diop, Théophile Obenga, D.T. Niane, Basil Davidson, Ali Mazrui, B.A. Ogot, J.F. Ade Ajayi, and many others.  The nine-volume UNESCO General History of Africa, with the contributions of many prominent historians of Africa, spans from the Nile Valley civilizations to Bantu expansion to the spread of Islam and the Arab slave trade to powerful empires (from the medieval to the modern: Ghana, Mali, Songhaï; Oyo, Benin, Asante, Dahomey, Toucouleur, etc.) to the European slave trade and the colonial period to the emergence of independent modern nations.  The academic work on African history available today in academic libraries and databases is outstanding and dynamic.

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It is well known that the writing of African history in the hands of European explorers, colonial administrators, and anthropologists produced a great deal of misinformation and stereotypes about African cultures.  However, among early twentieth-century anthropologists, despite certain colonial biases, figures such as R.S. Rattray and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (Britain), Maurice Delafosse and Marcel Griaule (France), and Leo Frobenius (Germany) produced studies that remain important even today.  In this era, African-American historians W.E.B. Du Bois and Carter Woodson were among the first to undertake responsible studies of African history for American readers.

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 In Africa’s World War (2009), a study of the Rwandan genocide and the wars in Congo that have engulfed central Africa, Gérard Prunier begins, “In 1885, at the heyday of European imperialism, Africa was a continent apart.  It had no nation-states, no caliphate, and no empire. […] It was a continent of clans, of segmentary tribes, and of a few sacred monarchies.”  This kind of misinformation in a well-reviewed, incredibly detailed study reflects a continued bias, a prevalent Eurocentric lens.  During the European Middle Ages (at times referred to as the Dark Ages), Timbuktu and Djenné in Mali were flourishing centers of culture and learning.  In the late nineteenth century, the period Prunier mentions above, advanced empires and caliphates, with sophisticated political and intellectual culture, were flourishing.  The British were engaged in full-scale wars against the Asante Empire, the Kingdom of Benin, and the Sokoto Caliphate, as the French battled the Dahomey Empire and the Wassoulou Empire, led by Samory Touré. 

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Whether readers are interested in the ancient migrations and kingdoms, in pan-Africanist architects of African Independence such as Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice, Lumumba, and Amílcar Cabral, or in contemporary politics, African history for decades has been chronicled by an array of responsible and innovate historians, whose work is available in journals, books, and digital sources.  Below are links to documentaries on some well-known West African empires.