This history deals with the twenty-year period between 1880 and 1900, when virtually all of Africa was seized and occupied by the Imperial Powers of Europe. Eurocentric points of view have dominated the study of this era, but in this book, one of Africa's leading historians reinterprets the colonial experiences from the perspective of the colonized. The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History are occasional volumes sponsored by the Department of History at the Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins University Press comprising original essays by leading scholars in the United States and other countries. Each volume considers, from a comparative perspective, an important topic of current historical interest. The present volume is the fifteenth. Its preparation has been assisted by the James S. Schouler Lecture Fund.

In this book, one of the pioneers of twentieth century African history examines the perceptions and responses of Africans to European colonialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This edition of Boahen's text, originally published in 1989, is contextualized in a new foreword by John Lonsdale, updating some of Boahen's findings and interpretations while maintaining that the "best, totally unambiguous, legacy of this republication would surely be the inspiration of a new generation of African scholars, locally based, as clear-minded and outspoken as Adu Boahen himself."

African World Histories is a series of retellings of some of the most commonly discussed episodes of the African and global past from the perspectives of Africans who lived through them. Integrating primary sources produced or informed by Africans, with accessible scholarly interpretation, African World Histories will give students insights into African experiences and perspectives into many of the events and trends that are commonly discussed in the history classroom.

Based on the idea that Africa was already becoming modern before being derailed by colonialism, the author insists that Africa can get back on track and advocates a renewed engagement with modernity. Tools toward shaping a positive future for Africa are immigration, capitalism, democracy, and globalization.

Global imperial designs, which have been in place since conquest by western powers, did not suddenly evaporate after decolonization. Global coloniality as a leitmotif of the empire became the order of the day, with its invisible technologies of subjugation continuing to reproduce Africa’s subaltern position, a position characterized by perceived deficits ranging from a lack of civilization, a lack of writing and a lack of history to a lack of development, a lack of human rights and a lack of democracy. The author’s sharply critical perspective reveals how this epistemology of alterity has kept Africa ensnared within colonial matrices of power, serving to justify external interventions in African affairs, including the interference with liberation struggles and disregard for African positions. Evaluating the quality of African responses and available options, the author opens up a new horizon that includes cognitive justice and new humanism.

The contributors not only study state breakdown but compare the consequences of post-communism with those of post-colonialism.