African history

In tenth-century Iraq, a group of Arab intellectuals and scholars known as the Ikhwan al-Safa began to make their intellectual mark on the society around them.

An insurgency in Nigeria by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has left thousands dead, shaken Africa's biggest country and worried the world.

How well do we really know ancient Egypt?

The reign of the founder of Cairo, the fourth Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah (341-365/953-975), marks a watershed in the transformation of the Fatimid state from a regional North African dynasty to an expansive Mediterranean empire.

In the long history of the British Empire there are few stories as singular as that of Margery Perham.

Charles Innes Meek's account of his twenty years in Tanganyika - now Tanzania - goes to the heart of British colonial rule at the end of empire.

The Copts of Egypt, who consist of 10-15 per cent of the population, have traditionally been viewed as a 'beleaguered and persecuted minority'.

How did an obscure Islamic visionary found an empire?

Universal ideas of freedom are to be found throughout the world's diverse intellectual and political traditions, spread by the global trade in ideas which has grown exponentially during the past 200 years.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

A thought-provoking reappraisal of the first European encounters with AfricaAs early as 1441, and well before other European countries encountered Africa, small Portuguese and Spanish trading vessels were plying the coast of West Africa, where they conducted business with African kingdoms that possessed significant territory and power.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

Endowed with natural resources, majestic bodies of fresh water, and a relatively mild climate, the Great Lakes region of Central Africa has also been the site of some of the world's bloodiest atrocities.

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth.

A dramatic intellectual biography of Victorian jurist Travers Twiss, who provided the legal justification for the creation of the brutal Congo Free StateEminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (18091897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe.

The first ethnographic exploration of the contentious debate over whether nonhuman primates are capable of cultureIn the 1950s, Japanese zoologists took note when a number of macaques invented and passed on new food-washing behaviors within their troop.

'The Muslim Mother Teresa' Huffington PostWinner of the 2023 Templeton PrizeImprisonment.

A compelling account of South Africa's post-Apartheid democracyAt a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty shines new light on the signal achievements of one of the contemporary era's most closely watched transitions away from minority rule.

A comprehensive account of the origins, evolution, and behavior of South and Central American primatesNew World Monkeys brings to life the beauty of evolution and biodiversity in action among South and Central American primates, who are now at risk.

Taking the Great Rift Valley - the geological fault that will eventually tear Africa in two - as his central metaphor, Alex Perry explores the split between a resurgent Africa and a world at odds with its rise.

In this compelling history of the men and ideas that radically changed the course of world history, Lawrence James investigates and analyses how, within a hundred years, Europeans persuaded and coerced Africa into becoming a subordinate part of the modern world.

Investigating the literary culture of the early interaction between European countries and East Africa, Edward Wilson-Lee uncovers an extraordinary sequence of stories in which explorers, railway labourers, decadent emigres, freedom fighters, and pioneering African leaders made Shakespeare their own in this alien land.

The Last Train to Zona Verde is an ode to the last African journey of Paul Theroux.

Discover how humans created their world from the objects they left behind - from the US Constitution to the first iPhone - in DK's latest history ebook.

'Superb' Sunday Times'Revolutionary' Alice Roberts'Hugely important' Jim Al-Khalili_______________A radical retelling of the history of science that foregrounds the scientists erased from history In this major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, James Poskett explodes the myth that science began in Europe.

'A delicious, important novel' The Times'Alert, alive and gripping' Independent'Some novels tell a great story and others make you change the way you look at the world.

The shocking first-hand account of one man's remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture.

Patrick Manning refuses to divide the African diaspora into the experiences of separate regions and nations.

In the mid-nineteenth century, French colonial leaders in Algeria started southward into the Sahara, beginning a fifty-year period of violence.