No classroom reaps the benefits of primary sources more than the African history classroom. Viewing the colonial past through the lens of ordinary Africans dramatically shifts the era's history from a grand narrative about European imperial conquest and occupation to the remarkable experiences of the everyday, rarely preserved in writing. This is the goal of Nancy J. Jacobs's newly compiled collection of primary sources in African history, the first of two planned volumes developed through the course of teaching the subject at Brown University.
Jacobs presents a series of more than 110 primary documents in roughly chronological order. She has made them accessible and meaningful with extensive commentary. Seven major themes engage the reader to consider African societies and African agency before the imperialist scramble and in relation to subsequent experiences of occupation, colonialism, race and citizenship, popular politics, conflict, and decolonization struggles. Among the sometimes substantially edited sources are literary excerpts, colonial records, transcribed interviews, song lyrics, photographs, cartoon drawings, memoirs, and newspaper editorials. The commentaries contextualize the sources, provide some historical background, and offer some interpretations, leaving students (and teachers) many opportunities to ‘be their own historians’, making other observations and tracing further connections.
The book's organization is not particularly user-friendly. Under the broad chapter themes, between two and ten source entries are grouped topically under two, three, or four subtopics. While these are listed in the volume's table of contents, their thematically organized content crosses the usual geographical and chronological boundaries, thus demonstrating Africa's historical complexity and the continent's diversity. Unfortunately, there is no listing of the source documents themselves and the complex organization makes it difficult to readily connect and compare multiple sources on familiar classroom topics, such as the impact of Christian missionaries, the ‘Scramble for Africa’, or the impact of the World Wars, without resorting to creative use of the 12-page subject and name index in the back. Thematic approaches are a necessity given the vastness of the African past, but the logic of selected themes is not obvious. Furthermore, they are interwoven across chapters, inviting confusion. Only occasionally do the commentaries offer comparisons or reminders that there are links between the sources. These organizational flaws detract from the potential to use this volume as a text, not simply a set of primary documents.
Not all section titles are explanatory nor are their thematic associations obvious. In Chapter One, ‘Life Before the Scramble’, a section subtitled ‘International Networks’ contains ten sources, from the writings of Hegel to an image of a Senegalese signare, a photograph of Kimberley diamond mining, and a letter from the Ethiopian monarch Tewodros II to Queen Victoria. While the set-up contextualizes each source, the deconstruction of ‘International Networks’ is left to a few meager sentences about the racial principles that eventually operated as justification for colonization. This section and others would require intensive unpacking in the classroom to help undergraduates comprehend complex meanings and nuanced connections among the diverse places and subject matter involved.
The inclusion of 45 maps and illustrations is a welcome feature, but the production quality of some of the black and white photographs is disappointing. The small black-and-white reproduction of a vibrantly colorful Ethiopian painting does not allow the reader to discern the symbolism of stylistic features discussed in its commentary, let alone identify its subject matter of European and Ethiopian faces. Similarly, the reader must rely almost entirely on the text's description for the Kimberley mine photograph in which features described as ‘supply lines’ might easily have been scratches on the negative.
Another section, ‘Traditions and Tribes’ uses terms that many historians will find problematic. The persistent use of ‘tribe’ and ‘tribalism’ without reference to their misuse as concepts that have shaped the public perceptions of a ‘Dark Continent’ seems a puzzling choice. Whereas ‘tribe’ has connoted confusion when used as a derogatory code for a ‘primitive’ society or to name a level of political organization, ‘tradition’ has been a trope for the ahistorical, unchanging character of African cultural backwardness promoted by popular media. Both words should catalyze classroom opportunities to address the selectivity of language and scholarly discourse in both the past and present.
These are small quibbles about a valuable classroom resource. The compiled sources themselves reflect continental breadth and a fully diverse range of perspectives, including the compilation's refreshing attention to issues of race, class, and gender. They bring new voices together and in so doing, they will alter the chorus of the African colonial past. The classroom use of many of these primary sources will help students see how Africans constructed their social lives, how individuals engaged with ideas, technology, religion, politics, and economic opportunities. Together, the sources allow the reader to comprehend Africa's place in the world.
