ABSTRACT
Africa is perhaps the most difficult of all places to bring into historical focus because of its teeming array of peoples, cultures, and kingdoms. A British historian once proposed that Africa has no history, a view now antiquated. But there are problems. In addition to numerous ethnic groups, there are currently some 50 countries to take into account on a continent three times the size of the USA. A second obstacle to historical understanding is the relative absence of written materials before the colonial period. Historians glean what they can from a skeletal record but must have recourse to linguistics, archeology, art, comparative linguistics, oral history, anthropology, and geography to fill out a picture. The historian who tries to encompass Africa as a whole needs far more elaborate equipment for research and assessment than a historian of Europe.
