ABSTRACT
The history of Africa is not a topic that has generated significant interest within International Relations (IR) circles. This is chiefly because international history tends to be read through the prism of IR theory, and theorists have prioritised questions which are closely associated with Europe, Europeans and the sovereign state. Most histories written by IR scholars have little to say about the African continent prior to the later nineteenth century, and when Africa does enter into the equation there is a further tendency to concentrate upon the operations and eventual delegitimation of colonial authority, which has the effect of reducing the precolonial to a form of prehistory. The main aim of this chapter is to advance the case for considering the history of Africa prior to colonisation on its own terms, rather than as a preamble to the ‘main event’. This means focusing upon regional and local variations and patterns of cross-cultural exchange associated with the Sahara, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. It also means exploring efforts to theorise and understand political authority, which continue to be complicated by Eurocentric evaluative standards.
