The African Past: Chronicles from Antiquity to Modern Times

by Basil Davidson

The African Past is an anthology of Africa "as told in the chronicles and records of chiefs and kings, travellers and merchant-adventurers, poets and pirates and priests, soldiers and men of learning". Basil Davidson's introduction and the extensive narrative framework into which he has set quotations from these records enable The African Past to be read a s alively and arresting story, as well as a continuous guide to the long unfolding of African history.

Genres: Africa, History, Nonfiction

392 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Basil Risbridger Davidson was an acclaimed British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution .

He has written several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements have been central themes of his work.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

From 1939, Davidson was a reporter for the London "Economist" in Paris, France. From December 1939, he was a Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)/MI-6 D Section (sabotage) officer sent to Budapest (see Special Operations Europe, chapter 3) to establish a news service as cover. In April 1941, with the Nazi invasion, he fled to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. In May, he was captured by Italian forces and was later released as part of a prisoner exchange. From late 1942 to mid-1943, he was chief of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) Yugoslav Section in Cairo, Egypt, where he was James Klugmann's supervisor. From January 1945 he was liaison officer with partisans in Liguria, Italy.

After the war, he was Paris correspondent for "The Times," "Daily Herald" ,"New Statesman", and the "Daily Mirror."

Since 1951, he became a well known authority on African history, an unfashionable subject in the 1950s. His writings have emphasised the pre-colonial achievements of Africans, the disastrous effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the further damage inflicted on Africa by European colonialism and the baleful effects of the Nation State in Africa.

Davidson's works are required reading in many British universities. He is globally recognized as an expert on African History.

He currently lives in Staffordshire.

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

excerpts from historical writings

When you begin to study African history, you need to establish a solid foundation. You need to get a wide view of many different periods and places in order to think about what you, as a scholar, will concentrate on. If you are just curious about Africa in general, you will get many things to think about here. In a 364 page book that covers writings from ancient Egypt, Herodotus, West African Muslim scholars, Ibn Battuta (14th century traveler), East African chronicles, Chinese directories, Portuguese visitors, and 19th century English explorers (like David Livingstone and Mungo Park)---among others !---you certainly will have a wide variety of experience and observation to choose from. While North Africa and Madagascar get short shrift, most other parts of the vast continent rate a mention. The inland kingdoms of the West African savannas, the Monomotapa country of present-day Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the coastal cities of East Africa, and Ethiopia feature in Davidson's admirable collection along with many observations on coastal West Africa, Congo, South Africa, and others. Whether you want to read this book cover to cover, or only dip into it as need dictates, is up to you. Some of the writings are most fascinating, others strangely opaque. I wondered why a few of them had `made the cut". Each section is prefaced by useful background and comments by the author. All in all, for an overview of African history, I can strongly recommend THE AFRICAN PAST. P.S. Provide yourself with a good map because there isn't one in the book.

[Ray Hartley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this old Basil Davidson book up at the rooftop market in Norwood, brought it home, sat down and read it right through. There is something absolutely wonderful about reading the words of those who chose to document their African experiences centuries ago. There are the accounts of ancient kingdoms, of the royal courts and the social organisation of these civilisations and then follow the slave-traders, the colonists and the adventurers. But there are also the pleading letters of ancient kings, written to European monarchs, beseeching them to cease the slave trade. What emerges from these primary documents is a vivid portrait of a continent dragged into conflict by increasing competition for its resources and the ways in which the people adapted and resisted these changes.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not intent on finishing - just wanted to get the thrust of his perspective. It fills in color on the continent routinely passed over as having had no civilization nor achievement until the slave traders came. The civilization is documented by the author.

[Patrick Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

2021-03-17 This was yet another book in my HS Soph. year honors history class "Non Western Cultures." Again, I remember very little from the book, except some general and specifics that somehow stuck.

[Colin DIngwall]

While this book can read rather like a list and somewhat andecdotal it strikes me as profound since it reveals the levels of cultural and social development in Africa before the coming of the white man. Much of the fabric of that development has been and is being destroyed and it is located in war zones, making it impossible for us to appreciate this cultural inheritance directly. This is a deep tragedy as this cultural inheritance is as important to us today as that of Greece and Rome. It is also a shame that the TV programmes bearing the same name which Basil Davidson made for Channel 4 appear to have been lost.