Review: An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi

Hello friends,

An African History of Africa is a book that should be on everyone's bookshelf. As author Zeinab Badawi points out, everyone - humans - originated in Africa so it's a history for everyone.

The subtitle of the book is "From the dawn of humanity to independence", and the book delivers, touching on events happening on the African continent across millennia through 17 impactful chapters. The rise and fall of kingdoms and dynasties, the importance of location to prosperity, religious battles, art and architecture - it's all here, as well as chapters covering enslavement, European predation, extraction, and liberation and independence. The scope is truly breathtaking.

What I Enjoyed (and Learned From)

That said, Badawi doesn't claim to make this comprehensive - how could a history going back so far ever be, especially in just a few hundred pages? But she does succeed in filling in some gaps - chasms - in the common understanding of the history and evolution of the African peoples and continent.

Importantly, she turns to African scholars and historians as primary sources. These are the voices that have often been erased in service of narratives that underpin the rationale for and practice of settler colonialism and the genocides that went along with them.