Page 133 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

18 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

means of reconstructing the African past. Over the
decades since, the results of this research have established
a rich and varied historiography. Such a body of histori-
cal knowledge could not be ignored by world historians,
and as a result world history texts could no longer dis-
count Africa as being without history.
However, the area studies model was not without its history of Africa and other previously neglected regions
drawbacks. In particular, the organization of different of the world. The point here is that the changing “con-
parts of the world into apparently coherent areas (largely cepts” of Africa highlight that the concept of Africa itself
based upon continental divisions) ascribed a meaning to is a construction, no less than that of race or civilization.
units no more precise than the older concepts of race or The meaning of Africa, thus, has held different things for
civilization. Notably, world history textbooks followed different audiences over time. Some based more in his-
the new structure of the field by basing their chapter torical fact, and others based more in cultural and polit-
organization on area studies frameworks, leading to a ical agendas, perhaps, but all very real in terms of the
“meanwhile, in Africa” approach to the continent. Such a impact on their audience’s conceptions of world history.
framework did little to undermine the old notion of an The changing notions of Africa highlight the fact that our
isolated Africa or of the idea of culturally coherent civi- understanding of both Africa and the world has been
lizations that had previously been advocated by the likes both interrelated and constantly changing for the past
of Hegel and Breasted, or even Diop. The 1980s and several hundred years. Indeed, it is rather difficult to
1990s saw a challenge to these notions via the rise of understand the one without the other.
concepts such as zones of interaction, which stressed the
Jonathan T. Reynolds
connections between regions rather than the difference
between them. Regions such as “the Atlantic world” or See alsoAfrica,Colonial;Africa,Postcolonial;African Reli-
“the Indian Ocean world” replaced continents as units of gions; African-American and Caribbean Religions; Afro-
analysis. As Patrick Manning, one of a growing group of Eurasia; Aksum; Apartheid in South Africa; Art—Africa;
Africanists who have greatly influenced world history in Benin; Egypt—State Formation; Egypt,Ancient; Equato-
recent years, argued in his 2003 work Navigating World rial and Southern Africa; Hausa States; Kanem-Bornu;
History, it is the connections that make world history, not Kenyatta, Jomo; Kongo; Mali; Mansa Musa; Mehmed II;
the separations. Meroe; Nkrumah,Kwame; Nubians; Pan-Africanism; Pas-
Because these new regional units of analysis build on toral Nomadic Societies; Senghor, Leopold; Shaka Zulu;
zones of interaction rather than on continents or civi- Slave Trades; Sokoto Calipahate; Songhai; Trading Pat-
lizations, they threaten to deconstruct the very area stud- terns, Trans-Saharan; Tutu, Desmond; Wagadu Empire;
ies frameworks that have done so much to further the Warfare—Africa; Zimbabwe, Great