The Guardian has supplemented their interactive timeline of Africa’s modern political history with a list of books that they think best tell the Africa’s stories.
The list, compiled by the Guardian’s Global Development team consists of classics like Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost and Colin McEvedy’s The Penguin Atlas of African History, alongside more modern reads like Michela Wrong’s In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz and Jason Stearns’ Dancing in the Glory of Monsters.
However, the Guardian does not by any means suggest that their list is the final word and they have invited readers to provide their own recommendations. Books already suggested include Frontiers by Noel Mostert, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I will Write About This Place, Class Struggle in Africa by Kwame Nkrumah and Citizen and Subject by Mahmood Mamdani. One commentator even argues that the best books on Africa have yet to be written, saying that the books mentioned above all hail from the “catalogue of doom and gloom”. Yet, speaking of “doom and gloom”, Zimbabwe seems poorly represented.
What books do you think best explain the history of the continent? To add your suggestions to the Guardian debate, email development@guardian.co.uk, or why not start a Book Chat thread below?
"Earlier this week, we published an introductory timeline of Africa from 1900 to 2011 mapping when various nation states became independent. After much agonising about what just had to be included, we’d be interested to hear which histories of Africa you’ve read and especially which you would recommend. The Global development team has come up with some of their most interesting recent reads.
"One online resource we’ve found useful is the BBC World Service’s Story of Africa, which is at pains to redress the balance over who is telling the history – or histories – of the continent. Professor Ali Mazrui was one of several interesting advisers on this project."
