Africa to 1800: Environment, Society, and State Formation

3 units

This course examines Africa in the precolonial period with a view to understanding the composition of African life and society prior to the formal colonization of the continent by Europeans. Focusing on the role of the environment and trade, it looks at how societies around the continent formed and interacted. Working from the premise that Africa was never a continent in separate and distinct from the rest of the world, the course presents the history of the continent in the larger context of a world system in which the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean and Red Seas served as transportation networks for the circulation of goods and people.