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Every academic year, many high school and college students are introduced to
African history for the first time. Some of the introductory lessons focus on the
contributions of African kingdoms and states to world civilization. Instructors fo-
cus on kingdoms and empires for one main reason—they offer a critical window
into African civilizations and the broader experiences of Africans over time, place,
and space. Although textbooks on African history are legion, most of them treat
African kingdoms cursorily and as part of a general survey of Africa, covering
many centuries and thousands of ethnic groups. Some excellent academic mono-
graphs on specific kingdoms also exist. However, they are largely unsuitable for
nonspecialist audiences and high school and college undergraduate students who
need an accessible body of knowledge to fulfill general education requirement of
the school curriculum or satisfy personal curiosity about non-Western societies.
African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations addresses
this deficiency and helps students learn more about several other kingdoms miss-
ing in most textbooks. More so, students and instructors will have core informa-
tion on the exploits of each kingdom, state, and empire, comparing and contrasting
how migration, geography, political processes, and other internal and external
factors shaped popular history and consciousness. Students encountering African
history for the first time and those taking world civilization courses will not have
to scavenge through tons of library books to fully grasp the contributions of
Africa to human civilization. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires
and Civilizations offers a useful entry into researching broader African history
by providing students with a handy source capable of initiating and sustaining
critical thinking about comparative and cross-cultural civilizations. Materials in
this encyclopedia include contemporary/modern reenactments of kingdoms in
popular culture, movies, and arts. It is important to link the past with the present
not just because this helps to emphasize the importance of historical events in
shaping current thoughts but also because it is one of the best means of generat-
ing critical and culturally sensitive debate about the civilizations and achieve-
ments of the people of the past.
This encyclopedia draws on primary and secondary sources produced by both
Africans and non-Africans. Contributors use popular oral traditions to corroborate
and/or cross-examine documented information. Other useful bodies of material
are derived from archaeology, arts, and written traveling accounts of European
Introduction
Uncovering Africa’s Past
Saheed Aderinto
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