Abstract

AN ANALYSIS OF PRE-COLONIAL CENTRAL AFRICAN AGRICULTURE: EUROCENTRIC VERSUS LIBERAL VERSION

Wamburakwao Sapao

Volume: 7 Issue: 2 2017

Abstract:

The re-interpretation of the African past is a topical theme in the bourgeoning post-independence African universities. The few educated Africans at independence were more conversant with the history of Europe than the history of Africa or country of their nationality. That was doubtless the reason history was among the first disciplines introduced at the universities founded in post-independence African states. Political independence did stimulate research on national histories in the departments of history. The movement, aimed at recording the events leading to political independence and resolving the incidence of inadequate history teaching material in tertiary institutions, secondary as well as primary schools. Interestingly, accounts by some colonial European scholars described the African past from the perspective of the European experience. Subsequently, emerging African historians were stimulated to re-examine the Eurocentric history in to advance an alternative, more open and unbiased version – liberal interpretation of the African past. The present study encapsulates the controversy between bias and objectivity in reconstructing the African past.

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