• Books About African History by African Writers - African Europeans: An Untold History
  • Books About African History by African Writers - Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin
  • Books About African History by African Writers - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  • Books About African History by African Writers - Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo
  • Books About African History by African Writers - Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda Heywood

Books About African History by African Writers, recommended by Zeinab Badawi

The history of Africa is rich with stories of mighty empires, canny politicking, and complex belief systems. But too often history books written by outsiders focus solely on its colonial past. It’s time to read more books about African history by African writers, argues the broadcaster Zeinab Badawi—whose African History of Africa was recently shortlisted for a Nero Book Award. Here, she recommends five brilliant books to get you started.

  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda Heywood
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade by Roquinaldo Ferreira
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda by Vanessa Oliveira
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the 17th Century by José Lingna Nafafé
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - A History of West Central Africa to 1850 by John Thornton

The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century), recommended by Mariana Candido

West Central Africa was involved in the transatlantic slave trade from its inception in the fifteenth century until it ended in the late nineteenth century. It’s the region that lost the largest number of enslaved people to the transatlantic slave trade, with over 5.6 million people taken away. And yet Angola, where three of the five main slaving ports were located, is little studied in English. Here, Mariana Candido, a professor at Emory University, introduces us to some of the best books (available in English) on this era of Angolan history, from the biography of one ruler, Njinga Mbandi, to a survey of the entire period.

  • The best books on The Ghana - Golden Trade of the Moors: West African Kingdoms in the Fourteenth Century by E.W. Bovill
  • The best books on The Ghana - Ancient Ghana and Mali by Nehemiah Levtzion
  • The best books on The Ghana - Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables 1400-1900 by Elias Saad
  • The best books on The Ghana - Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples by David C. Conrad
  • The best books on The Ghana - Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'di's Ta'rikh Al-Sudan down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents by John Hunwick

The best books on The Ghana, Mali and Songhai African Empires, recommended by Michael Gomez

Long before the Europeans arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries, sub-Saharan West Africa saw the emergence of a series of African empires that lasted for centuries and stretched over vast swathes of the continent. They were known as the Ghana, Mali and Songhai Empires. Here, historian Michael Gomez discusses what led to their greatness, what sustained them and why they fell.