Talk:History of Africa

Medieval and modern era

Is it worth expanding this section a bit to summarise the main article Medieval and early modern Africa?

At the moment I do think this section is very bare and I don't think its content is logical or broad enough, I find the paragraph on the Xhosa, whilst excluding all other ethnic groups, very strange Alexanderkowal (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

And possibly even separating it into two sections, Medieval era (CE 500-1500) and Early modern era (1500-1800), as there's just so much content that I imagine would be difficult to summarise without either ignoring the difference in pace of state formation/centralisation between and within regions or ignoring some regions. Alexanderkowal (talk) 18:41, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

with only ancient period and ignoring historiography section, 6000 words Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Copying from other pages

Just putting it here that most of what I've written is copied from other pages, I know I should credit that in the edit summary but I forget. Alexanderkowal (talk) 19:17, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Remove too many links warning?

After reading over the article I wanted to ask if the too many links warning should be removed which I think it should since it seems to have a necessary amount of links. Wastelandhero18 (talk) 18:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I support the removal of that warning. Masterhatch (talk) 21:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Tbf when that was put there was one big paragraph of links, it's now better organised but the policy seems ambiguous. I do think the current version is necessary and not a huge eyesore Alexanderkowal (talk) 22:05, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok I'll remove it. Wastelandhero18 (talk) 03:09, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Btw if anyone wants to add anymore to it feel free, I'd like to add another Madagascan one but they're talked about on the pages of ethnic groups rather than having their own page Alexanderkowal (talk) 22:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Image

The map at the top of this article ignores, at least, Madagascar's successive pre-colonial states. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I know, the map is very biased, I put Merina in the description but it’s still not great. It needs to be edited to include more kingdoms from central, east, and southern africa Alexanderkowal (talk) 22:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way to request editing/creation on Commons? I'd be willing to put together a list of kingdoms and compile some other relevant maps to guide the creation. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 22:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

There should be but idk, if there isn’t it might be worth messaging people who have made maps of African kingdoms in the past and nicely asking if they would be interested in making a big one for the main African history page? Idm doing this? Alexanderkowal (talk) 08:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I did a request at Commons and pinged you, dk if it worked Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:53, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Update

Hi, sorry about the slow progress, there’s been very little work done on a modern general history of Africa and I’m still learning African history as I go. I’m on west Africa at the moment, about half way through, and have a skeleton for east Africa. I need to learn more about oral tradition before going much further so I’ve bought Vansina’s book and plan to edit oral tradition as I learn. If anyone has any expertise or knowledge of sources regarding the empty sections please provide them below, people are welcome to help. What I’m doing might be too ambitious idk Alexanderkowal (talk) 22:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Don't apologize! Wikipedia is collaborative :) the work you're doing is amazing. I will contribute to Madagascar's sections down the line. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 22:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with the content you want to add, it's just, for the place where the blank sections were, not there. One blank section, maybe just saying "sub-Saharan Africa" with an empty section template, would suffice — we don't need ten different empty sections which aren't properly formatted to be present when just one is enough of a line between reader usability and invitefulness to edit said section. All the necessary information to add is additionally already on the main article, Medieval and early modern Africa, so we don't necessarily need to write a whole new large block of text in this article (which is already too long at ~11,500 words) when we can simply summarize that article. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 22:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

What if we had those sections and had for northern Great Lakes for example {main|Empire of Kitara|Kingdom of Rwanda|Busoga|Nkore|Buganda etc. so that the reader can still read about the region in that time period? Alexanderkowal (talk) 08:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I want to delete and rewrite the Historiography section so it’s only a couple medium paragraphs, page length is an issue though, the post classical section for North Africa will be by far the longest because that period of history was utter turmoil Alexanderkowal (talk) 08:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the goal for this page is to have a history of africa where readers can trace the threads of african history from ancient times to the various colonies and modern day countries, I think the post colonial section should probably be quite short, and the colonial section just cover the conquests and the various rebellions, with a couple sentences on colonial rule from the african perspective, and then an overview of the independence wars. I like the tone of the current colonial section Alexanderkowal (talk) 11:46, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Eurocentric periodization

The article is applying a clearly Eurocentric and irrelevant periodization on the entirety of African history. There's really no excuse for doing this. The classic-medieval-modern periodization isn't even fixed for Europe but varies depending on region and historical theme.

Africa as a continent doesn't really have a single megahistorical periodization scheme and it's not appropriate to try to make one up out of thin air just because it's convenient. In fact, I'd say it's very much not a global perspective.

Here are some quotes from several volumes of The Cambridge History of Africa regarding periodization:

• "There is obviously no scheme of periodization which is valid for Africa as a whole, and the opening and closing dates of this volume are not intended to be more than notional." (Oliver, "Introduction: some interregional themes", Volume 3: From c.1050 to c.1600)[1]
• "As is remarked in the Introduction to the third volume of the Cambridge History of Africa, there are obvious pitfalls in marking out periods of African history which are equally valid for all parts of the continent." (Fage, "Introduction" Volume 2: From c.500 BC to AD 1050)[2]

There's likely more commonality towards the 19th century and the development of hallmarks of modernity (including colonialism) but that's still probably not something that can be applied to the continent as a whole. Peter ^Isotalo 21:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking about this earlier today. I’m mostly going off of the periodisation in the General History of Africa. The academic discipline of history is naturally Eurocentric in the assumptions it makes. At the end of the day this is English Wikipedia and it makes sense to show African history through these European conventions. We’re still a long way off from historians unpicking colonial histories and localising the study of history, so I don’t think this concern can be addressed. Is your concern about using the 16th century as a period break? Kowal2701 (talk) 21:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

This’ll all be written from the African perspective, I’m trying to be very careful in that, only European conquest and colonisation will have them as subjects of sentences Kowal2701 (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I do have European constructs which makes this very problematic, but this page was practically empty, a slightly Eurocentric history is better than none. I can only go off of what I read Kowal2701 (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I’m going to extend the ancient period to the 6th century, with the 7th century as the period break due to the coming of Islam (this is a very common break). The 16th century is also very common as a period break. I think the issue is more with their names, I’ll just have the dates Kowal2701 (talk) 21:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

There's no quick fix to this, especially not by simply removing the labels but keeping the dates.

And you seem to be missing the point here: Africa doesn't have a single applicable periodization scheme. There's no quick fix to this either. The article needs to be restructured. Peter ^Isotalo 22:01, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't just remove the label. The periodisation reflects reliable sources. The General History of Africa was solely written to be an Afrocentric general history of Africa, and it uses these periodisations. Vague assertions are useless. This is how history articles are structured on wikipedia. Kowal2701 (talk) 22:05, 9 July 2024 (UTC)