An Atlas of African History

Abstract

When this Atlas of African History was first published 10 1958, practically the whole continent was still under colonial rule, and the academic study of its peoples' past was only just beginning. Nearly twenty years later, the situation is very different. There is hardly an African territory which is not now recognised as an independent state. But this momentous change need not have occasioned a completely new edition of the Alias. As in fact was done in 1963 and 1965, it could have been dealt with simply by the revision of those maps showing recent political history. What has necessitated the production of a wholly revised second edition has been the rapid and expansive flowering since the mid- I 950S of historical and archaeological research Into the African past. This is directly associated with the growth of universities, as of education generally, in the new Africa, and of the acceptance of the history and archaeology of Africa as valid subjects for study in the universities of other countries. If only because the colonial period of African history was so very short for the most part concentrated within the years 1880 1960, hardly more than a human life-span-many of the most spectacular advances in knowledge have related to the very much longer period of some two thousand years since iron-working was initiated south of the Sahara, and particularly perhaps to the seven or so centuries before the Europeans' scramble for African colonies, the period during which most of the politics they conquered were shaped. As a result, many of the maps originally conceived for this formative period of African hi tory had become inadequate or unsatisfactory, and It also became possible to conceive new maps relating to times or to areas whose history had hitherto been chiefly characterised by its obscurity. Thus, comparing the Atlas now presented to the public with the original edition of 1958, there arc 21 completely new maps, while 11 of the old ones have been deleted, and quite a few of the others have been subjected to Some alteration or rearrangement.