ABSTRACT
A reflection on contemporary Africa confirms the inadequacy of traditional chronological divisions, poorly adapted to the progress of extra-European historical development, and demonstrates the extraordinary continuity between the pre-colonial past and post-colonial present that is the keystone of the current African debate. African history was born in the wake of a past closely linked with the colonial period and its own official historiography, with prejudices acquired and diffused even on an academic level, and with eurocentric assumptions and disciplinary certainty. A new African historiography was born in the wake of the post-war nationalist movements. It derived its strength both from an indigenous political movement, and from an external intellectual culture that of European socialism. The nationalist history of the 1950s and 1960s gave preference to the themes of African history considered useful to the development of new state structures, and therefore to breathe historical life into the model of the Nation-State that was the legacy of the colonial period.
