Zed Books A History of Africa (African History Archive)

Spanning more than two thousand years of African history, from the African Iron Age to the collapse of colonialism and the beginnings of independence, Hosea Jaffe's magisterial work remains one of the few to do full justice to the continent's complex and diverse past. The great strength of Jaffe's work lies in its unique theoretical perspective, which stresses the distinctive character of Africa's social structures and historical development. Crucially, Jaffe rejects all efforts to impose Eurocentric models of history onto Africa, whether it be liberal notions of 'progress' or Marxist theories of class struggle, arguing instead that the key dynamics underpinning African history are unique to the continent itself, and rooted in conflicts between different modes of production. The work also includes a foreword by the distinguished economist and political theorist Samir Amin, in which he outlines the contribution of Jaffes work to our understanding of African history and its ongoing post-colonial struggles. Review ‘[Jaffe’s] views are indeed stimulating … and should reopen a discussion of great importance … I cannot but welcome this History of Africa which our comrade Hosea Jaffe offers us.’Samir Amin, from the Preface 'Hosea Jaffe, an incisive thinker, presents a very readable analysis of African history. His book, which is of major theoretical importance, provides many insights into African nationalist, class and other struggles, past, present and future.'Richard Pankhurst, Royal Asiatic Society About the Author Hosea Jaffe was a distinguished historian, economist, and radical activist. Born in South Africa in 1921, he was active in early anti-apartheid politics, until he was forced to flee the country in 1960. Over the course of his life he taught at universities throughout Africa and Europe, and authored numerous works on African history, politics and global economics. He died in Italy in 2014. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. A History of Africa By Hosea Jaffe Zed Books Ltd Copyright © 1985 Vittoria Ada Tutone Jaffe All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78699-065-5 Contents Abbreviations and Acronyms, Preface by Samir Amin, PART ONE: AFRICAN COMMUNISM AND DESPOTISM, PART TWO: EUROPEAN COLONIALISM – RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION, PART THREE: AFRICA IN THE INTER-NATIONAL CLASS STRUGGLE, PART FOUR: IMPERIALISM – AFRICAN EMANCIPATION, Select Bibliography, Index, CHAPTER 1 African Communism and Despotism From the 10th Century, during the Crusades — which the South African thinker Ben Kies has called 'the first great plundering expedition of Europe' — learned historians in the African countries bordering the Mediterranean, writing in Arabic, described the civilizations of the Sudan and the regions along the course of the Niger. El Bekri, El Idrisi, Ibn Hawkal, Ibn Khaldoun, Ibn Battuta, El Masudi and Leo Africanus revealed the existence of a series of societies, which were subsequently 'discovered' by European travellers and writers such as Dapper, Lopez, Cresques, Mungo Park, Barth and Frobenius. Since the political independence gained after the war, knowledge of these and similar societies in Central and East Africa has been extended by African scholars in proportion to their ideological independence of Euro-American schools. Only the most generalized data have been included in our brief chronology, with the main object of illustrating the antecedents of the modern liberation movements. Apart from the well known civilizations that flourished in Egypt Carthage, Kerma, Napata and Meroe in the pre-Christian era, many societies existed in other parts of Africa comparable with those that grew up at the same time in Europe and Asia. The writings of James Africanus Horton, Edward Blyden and Casely Hayford in the 19th Century, and Nkrumah, Sekou Touré and Amilcar Cabral in more recent times, indicate that the 'lost past' is itself an important '