Africa

Despite its isolation from the mainstream of human development, Basil Davidson writes, African society before the coming of the Europeans was neither savage nor stagnant.

C. Howard introduces Mary Kingsley: the devoted daughter amd energetic middle-class housekeeper who had become a distinguished explorer by the age of thirty-five. More than any other publicist of the 1890’s, she helped to make Englishmen aware of their responsibilities on the African continent.

Charles Chenevix Trench finds that, as Governor of Equatoria and then Governor-General of the Sudan from 1874-1880, one of C. G. Gordon’s chief concerns was suppressing the slave-trade.

Anthony Bonner traces the route taken by a Spaniard, from Barcelona, who set out on his long journey throughorth Africa to Mecca with the backing of Manuel Godoy.

Michelle Liebst looks at how the career of the great explorer of Africa reflects the wider failings of Victorian imperialism.

J.H. Plumb shows how, between 1857 and 1888, after much controversy, the mystery of the Nile’s source was finally solved by the successive discoveries of Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley.

J.H. Plumb documents the repeated attempts by British explorers and abolitionists to open West Africa for the Empire.

Postwar decolonisation in West Africa saw tensions rise between the fading imperial powers of France and Britain, according to papers recently unearthed by Kathryn Hadley.

Colin Smith recounts the Allied invasion of French North Africa, which commenced on November 8th, 1942.

King Leopold II’s personal rule of the vast Congo Free State anticipated the horrors of the 20th century, argues Tim Stanley.