An introduction to African history

Abstract

The primary aim in collecting together these chapters covering the African experience from antiquity to the present, and presenting them in this manner, has been to provide a basis for group discussion classes in secondary schools and, indeed, in the 8-4-4 university curricula. The general reader, nevertheless, who wishes to learn the living ideas of the late Kenyan eminent historians and educators, Matthias Ogutu and Simon Kenyanchui, should also find this form of presentation valuable. The choice of the authors' works for consideration hardly needs a justification here: their topics on the African history have an undeniable perennial interest, and their clarity of expression and honest arguments should be an excellent example of the way such topics should be treated. It is no disadvantage in a book of this kind that their views are provocative and controversial, for it aims precisely at provoking thought and discussion.