This course will introduce students to the general contours of African history in a global context. Starting with intra-continental dynamics before contact with the West, the course touches on early African-European contacts, slave trade, colonial rivalry and misrule, and African independence and post-independence challenges and opportunities. The diversity and vastness of the continent, the multiplicity of the issues concerned, and temporal scope of the course, demand that lectures and readings are selective and at times even cursory. Assignments are intended to give the students sufficient time and space, and challenge them to go deeper on topics of their interest.
