Theme description HIM111

The course will examine the various ways in which the African continent has been connected to the rest of the world, from c. 1500 to the present. Starting with a general introduction to African history, the course will then introduce selected patterns of connectivity. The course aims to highlight not only exploitation, but also of exchange and adaptation. A main aim is to show how Africans have influenced regions beyond their continent’s borders, how they have been influenced from the outside and how internal African developments can be compared to those elsewhere in the world. Particular focus will be given to three main arenas of interaction; trade, religion/ideology and the changing positions of Africa in global political systems.

Trade: The course will examine one specific example in-depth and then compare it to different trading patterns as examples of different types of exchanges. The Indian Ocean trade between eastern Africa and Arabia/India will be discussed as an example of a pattern which from c. 1500-1900 brought about much material and cultural exchange, migration and the emergence of strong dynasties within Africa. However, the same pattern was also based on slavery (both slaves for export, and institutionalized slavery within East Africa itself), which was only abandoned in the late 19th century. This will be compared and contrasted with other patterns of trade, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the trade to Europe and the Middle East as well as the rising importance of China in present-day Africa.

Religion/ideology: Here, the focus will be particularly on the spread of Islam throughout the African continent from about 1500 to the 1950s. We will examine how the different ways in which the religion spread, generated new political entities with their own transregional and global networks. Islam spread both by trade, conquest, free and unfree migration, which generated different and long-lasting patterns of exchange. What impulses reached the different African Muslim societies, and how did African Muslims influence the rest of the Islamic world? This in-depth example will then be compared to other religious/ideological systems that have influenced African societies and produced impulses which in turn have reached beyond Africa, including Christianity and socialism.

Africa in global political systems: The main example here will be the impact of European colonialism in Africa, from the early Portuguese settlements to the partition of Africa between the colonial powers during the Berlin conference in 1884-85. The relationship between the colonized and the political centers (particularly London and Paris) will be examined as examples of political structures that shaped African political processes throughout the 20th century, but which also caused different types of accommodation and resistance. This example will be compared with the position of African societies within other global political systems, including that of the cold war period.