History of Africa in the context of "African studies"

African historiography is a branch of historiography involving the study of the theories, methods, sources, and interpretations used by scholars to construct histories of Africa. Most African societies recorded their history via oral tradition, resulting in a lack of written records documenting events before European colonialism. African historiography has therefore lent itself to contemporary methods of historiographical study, the utilisation of oral sources, and the incorporation of evidence derived from various auxiliary disciplines, differentiating it from other continental areas of historiography due to its multidisciplinary nature.

Oral historians utilised various sources from their communities in crafting socially-consolidated histories which were then passed down through generations, with traditions serving as contemporary documents of messages from the past. Early written history about Africa was largely undertaken by outsiders, each of which had their own biases. Colonial historiography was Eurocentric and propagated racist theories such as the Hamitic hypothesis. African historiography became organised in the mid-20th century, and initially involved the refutation of colonial narratives. Nationalist histories sought to generate patriotism and sustain the multi-ethnic nation states, and African historiography saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach alongside archaeology and historical linguistics. Following growing pessimism about the fate of the continent, Marxist thought became popular, and contributed to a more critical study of colonialism. From 1981 UNESCO began publishing the General History of Africa, edited by specialists from across the continent. The 1980s saw universities struggle amid economic and political crises, resulting in the migration of many scholars (largely to the United States), and the discipline remains critically underfunded. Historians of Africa in the 21st century focus more on contemporary history than precolonial history, and are less ideological than their predecessors as the discipline has taken on a more pluralist form.

The General History of Africa (GHA) is a two-phase project launched by UNESCO in 1964, producing a volume history of Africa first published in 1981 up to the present.

The 1964 General Conference of UNESCO, during its 13th Session, instructed the Organization to undertake this initiative after the newly independent African member states expressed a strong desire to reclaim their cultural identity, to rectify widespread ignorance about their continent's history, and to break free of discriminatory prejudices.

Monarchy was the prevalent form of government in the history of Africa, where self-governing states, territories, or nations existed in which supreme power resided with an individual who was recognized as the head of state. Many such states exist today. All are similar in that the sovereign inherits their office and typically keeps it until their death or until their abdication.

However, only three are currently sovereign, while the remaining are sub-national monarchies. Two of the former are constitutional monarchies (Lesotho and Morocco), in which the sovereign is bound by laws and customs in the exercise of his or her powers, and one is an absolute monarchy (Eswatini), in which the sovereign rules without bounds. The sub-national monarchies are not sovereign and exist within larger political associations, such as the Ashanti of Ghana, Bini of Nigeria, and the Xhosa and Zulu of South Africa. In addition to these, there are also three dependencies of two European monarchies—Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha of the United Kingdom and the Canary Islands and Ceuta and Melilla of Spain.

Jürgen Zimmerer (born 1965) is a German historian and Africanist. Since 2010 he has been Professor of African History at the University of Hamburg. He is known for his work on colonial history, genocide studies, and the relationship between German colonialism and National Socialism.

The prehistory of Africa spans from the earliest human presence in Africa until the ancient period in the history of Africa.

The Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, lit. 'Party of the Revolution') is the dominant ruling party in Tanzania. It was formed in 1977 from a merger between the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), which were the sole operating parties in mainland Tanzania and the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar, respectively. It has formed the majority government in Tanzania ever since, making it the second-longest ruling party in the history of Africa, only after the True Whig Party of Liberia.

TANU and its successor CCM have ruled Tanzania uninterruptedly since independence. The party has been described as authoritarian. Although opposition parties have been legal since 1992, the CCM rules the country as a virtual one-party state. Since the creation of a multi-party system, CCM has won the past seven general elections in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2025. Jakaya Kikwete, its presidential candidate in 2005, won by a landslide, receiving more than 80% of the popular vote and John Magufuli as a candidate in 2020 garnered over 84% of the vote. In the 2020 election, the CCM won 256 of the 264 constituencies, continuing to hold an outright majority in the National Assembly.

The Kongo people (also Bakongo, singular: Mukongo or M'kongo; Kongo: Bisi Kongo, EsiKongo, singular: Musi Kongo) are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others.

In the early Medieval Period, the Bakongo people were subjects of the Kingdom of Vungu. After its fall, they lived along the Atlantic coast of Central Africa in multiple kingdoms: Kongo, Loango, and Kakongo. Their highest concentrations are found south of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of the Congo, southwest of Pool Malebo and west of the Kwango River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Luanda, Angola and southwest Gabon. They are the largest ethnic group in the Republic of the Congo, and one of the major ethnic groups in the other two countries they are found in. In 1975, the Kongo population was reported as 4,040,000.