HIST 23200 - Africa from Colonization to Globalization

Course Credit: 1
(AFST, GLIS)
With the official abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the early 19th century, the encounter between Africa and Europe took a new and dramatic turn, with the beginning of the “legitimate trade.” This course will investigate how this change paved the way to the conquest and colonization of most of the continent by countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal. We are also going to examine the important role played by Africans during the two World Wars, the severe impact of the Great Depression on them, and the origins of the nationalist movement that led to the end of colonialism in the 1960s. We will then turn to the ways in which the combined effects of the Cold War, neocolonialism, and the failure of many of the first postcolonial leaders created a deep sentiment of disillusionment among millions of Africans and ushered into a tumultuous period that literally engulfed the continent from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. Starting in the 1990s, strong civil society groups began to emerge and, against all odds in Africa and beyond, pushed forcefully for Africans to define their own place in the world. [Global] [C, HSS]