BLST 180 Introduction to African History: Africa and the Making of the Modern World
This course offers an introduction to the modern history of Africa from the 15th century to the end of the Cold War, engaging a particular focus on the vital role African societies have played in the making of the modern world. Rather than presenting Africa as peripheral to global history and conceptions of modernity, this course emphasizes the centrality of Africa and African societies in the major political, economic and social transformations which shape and define our modern world.
Students will examine the evolving relationship between Africa and Europe within the broader context of the global rise of mercantile capitalism, the European imperial project of the 15th - 19th centuries and the geopolitical context of the Cold War struggle for influence and resources in Africa. The course is organized around four key historical periods: the rise of mercantile capitalism and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade; the 19th century colonial encounter inaugurated at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85; African resistance movements and solidarity with global anti-colonial struggles; and African independence and global decolonization.
Students will explore major themes in African history including: sovereignty and dependency, development and underdevelopment, nationalism and resistance, and pan-Africanism and black internationalism. These will be analyzed within relation to broader global forces including neocolonialism, monopoly capitalism and globalization.
By interrogating hegemonic narratives that portray Africa as a passive recipient of external forces, students will assess the diverse ways in which Africans have exercised agency and contributed to the global processes that define modernity. The course concludes with an assessment of Africa’s role in the emerging global order.