Research Guides: HSTY 3310-11: African History: Find Books

History Librarian

Kristina Claunch

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Other Reference Works

SERIES: Historical Dictionaries of Africa
A series of 20+ books focused on the history of individual countries within the African continent. Follow the link to view all the countries available.

New Encyclopedia of Africa
Call Number: REF DT2 .N48 2008 v.1-5 (2nd floor)
Encyclopedia of African History and Culture
Call Number: DT3 .P27 2005, volumes 1-5 (2nd floor Reference)
Key Events in African History: A reference guide by Toyin Falola
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: REF DT20 .F35 2002 (2nd floor)

Each entry appears in chronological order and consists of a comprehensive essay on the event, its historical, social, and geographic context, and its long-term significance. Many illustrations and maps provide valuable visual tools for the reader. Each entry concludes with suggestions for further reading.
Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism by James S. Olson (Ed); Ross Marlay; William Ratliff; Joseph M. Row, Robert M. Shadle
Publication Date: 1991

Christopher Columbus' discovery of the new world launched a process of economic and cultural integration that continues to this day. In the wake of Columbus's voyages, the major powers of Western Europe established imperial systems that shaped global politics and economics for centuries. "The Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism" is designed to provide a ready reference tool for students and scholars of these systems. Its major focus is the Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, French, German, Belgian, and Italian empires during the past 500 years.
Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450
Call Number: Read Online

This new set provides students and researchers with a much-needed, comprehensive resource on the subject of colonialism and expansion. The work describes and analyzes the many aspects of the history of Europe's expansion overseas into the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific, beginning in the 15th century and the building and collapse of empires (Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch, German, American). Race relations in decolonized regions as well as current examples of continuing dependence by much of the developing world on Western nations are covered.
Dictionary of African Biography
Call Number: CT1920 .D52 2012, volumes 1-6 (2nd floor Reference)
Historical Dictionary of the Coptic Church
Call Number: Read Online

The Historical Dictionary of the Coptic Church details the history of one of the oldest Christian churches. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important people, organizations, and structures; the theology and practices of the church; its literature and liturgy; and monasteries and churches.

Gale Ebooks (*formerly* Gale Virtual Reference Library - GVRL)
Collection of ebooks (primarily reference) in almost all subjects, which are searchable together or individually. For a list of titles currently available, click on "Title List" at top right.

Sample of Books in the Main Collection

The Battle of Adwa: African victory in the age of empire by Jonas
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: DT387.3 .J67 2011 (4th floor)

Publication Date: 2011

In 1896 a massive Ethiopian army routed an invading Italian force and brought Italy's conquest of Africa to an end. In defending its independence, Ethiopia cast doubt on the assumption that all Africans would fall under the rule of Europeans, and opened a breach that would lead to the continent's painful struggle for freedom from colonial rule.
Politics of the Womb - Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya
Call Number: Read Online

This innovative book enriches the study of gender, reproduction, sexuality, and African history by revealing how reproductive controversies challenged long-standing social hierarchies and contributed to the construction of new ones that continue to influence the fraught politics of abortion, birth control, female genital cutting, and HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Health Reform in Africa: Lessons from Sierra Leone
Call Number: Read Online

Publication Date: 1996

Examines reforms to the health care sector in Sierra Leone in the early to mid 1990s. Might provide some historical background on the health care system in place during the 2014 ebola outbreak.
Maji Maji: Lifting the fog of war
Call Number: Read Online

This volume reexamines the Maji Maji war of 1905-07 in Tanzania, the largest African rebellion against European colonialism. Contributors provide histories of previously neglected localities and groups, and new insight into the use of protective medicines believed to provide invulnerability.
Britain and Germany in Africa: imperial rivalry and colonial rule
Call Number: DT32.B73 (4th floor)

Contains, for example, a chapter entitled "The effects of the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905-1906 on German occupation policy in East Africa"
A history of Africa south of the Sahara
Call Number: DT352.W48 (4th floor)

Addresses, among other things, the Great Trek of the Boers.
Scramble for Africa: The Great Trek to the Boer War by Nutting
Call Number: DT731.N87 1971 (4th floor)

Publication Date: 1971
Christianity in the Land of the Pharaohs by Kamil
Call Number: Read Online

Publication Date: 2002

The Copts - the indigenous Christians of Egypt - declared their independence from Byzantine Christianity when they appointed their own patriarchs in the sixth century. Jill Kamil has written an angaging and accessible survey of the history of Christianity on Egypt, through its development under Rome, Byzantium and Islam, to modern times.
Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity by Meinardus
Call Number: Read Online

Publication Date: 2002

Christianity arrived early in Egypt, brought—according to tradition—by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who became the first patriarch of Alexandria. The Coptic Orthodox Church has flourished ever since, with millions of adherents both in Egypt and in Coptic communities around the world. Dr. Otto Meinardus, a leading authority on the history of the Coptic Church, here revises, updates, and combines his renowned studies into a new, definitive, one-volume history for the Millennium, surveying the twenty centuries of existence of one of the oldest churches in the world.
Christians in Muslim Egypt : an historical study of the relations between Copts and Muslims from 640 to 1922
Call Number: BX134 .E3 T3 1998 (4th floor)
The Cambridge History of Africa
Call Number: DT20.C28 V1 - V8 (4th floor)
Approaching African History by Michael Brett
Call Number: DT19 .B74 2013 (4th floor)

This book takes as its subject the last 10,000 years of African history, and traces the way in which human society on the continent has evolved from communities of hunters and gatherers to the complex populations of today. Approaching that history through its various dimensions: archaeological, ethnographic, written, scriptural, European and contemporary, it looks at how the history of such a vast region over such a length of time has been conceived and presented, and how it is to be investigated. Michael Brett is Emeritus Reader in the History of North Africa at SOAS.
A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to present by Richard J. Reid
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: DT20 .R45 2012 (4th floor)

The new 2nd Edition of A History of Modern Africa recounts the full breadth of Africa's political, economic, and social history over the past two centuries.
A History of African Societies to 1870 by Elizabeth Isichei
Call Number: GN645 .I84 1997 (4th floor)

ISBN: 0521455995

This comprehensive and detailed exploration of the African past, from prehistory to approximately 1870, is intended to provide a fully up-to-date complement to the Cambridge History of Africa. Reflecting several emphases in recent scholarship, it focuses on the changing modes of production, on gender relations and on ecology, laying particular stress on viewing 'history from below'.
The Scramble for Africa (3rd ed) by Chamberlain
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: DT29 .C45 2010 (4th floor)

Publication Date: 2010

In 1870 barely one tenth of Africa was under European control. By 1914 only about one tenth - Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Liberia - was not. This book offers a clear and concise account of the 'scramble' or 'race' for Africa, the period of around 20 years during which European powers carved up the continent with little or no consultation of its inhabitants. The new edition includes primary source material unpublished elsewhere
Africans: The history of a continent by John Iliffe
Call Number: DT20 .I45 2007 (4th floor)

In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the AIDS epidemic, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, and their social, economic and political institutions have been designed to ensure their survival. In the context of medical progress and other twentieth-century innovations, however, the same institutions have bred the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen.
Inventing Africa: History, archaeology and ideas by Robin Derricourt
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: DT19 .D477 2011 (4th floor)

Inventing Africa is a critical account of narratives which have selectively interpreted and misinterpreted the continent's deep past. Images of 'Africa', simplifying a complex and diverse continent, have existed from ancient Mediterranean worlds, slave trading nations, and colonial powers to today's political elites, ecotourists, and aid-givers. Derricourt explores the limits and the dangers of simplifications, arguing that ambitious ideas can delude or oppress as well as inform. Defending Africa against some of the grand narratives that have been imposed upon its peoples, Inventing Africa will spark new debates in the history of Africa and of archaeology.

For Reference: Past and Present Names of African Countries

Historical Country Names: Africa
(NationsOnline.org)

Browse the Collection

An excellent way to discover additional resources is to browse for books in relevant call number ranges.

DT1 - DT3415 - History of Africa
- DT43 - DT154 - Egypt
- DT154.1 - DT159.9 - Sudan. Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
- DT160 - DT177 - North Africa
- DT179.2 - DT179.9 - Northwest Africa
- DT181 - DT 346 - Maghrib. Barbary States
  - Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sahara
- DT348 - DT363.3 - Central Sub-Saharan Africa
- DT365 - DT469 - Eastern Africa
  - Ethiopia, Abyssinia, Eritrea, Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, French Territory of the Afars and Issas, East Africa, British East Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Tanganyika, German East Africa, Rwanda, Ruanda-Urundi, Burundi, East African coastal islands (Madagascar, Mascarene Islands, Mautitius, Ile de France, Mayotte, Reunion, Seychelles)
- DT470 - DT671 - West Africa. West Coast
  - Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea
  - British West Africa (Ashanti Empire, Gambia, Ghana/Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone)
  - French West Africa (Benin, Dahomey, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire/Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gaboon, Gabun, Congo, Brazzaville, Middle Congo, Central African Republic, Central African Empire, Chad/Tchad, Niger, West Sahara, Senegal, Mali, Mali Federation, Sudanese Republic, French Sudan, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Upper Volta)
  - Cameroon, Cameroun, Kamerun, Togo, Portuguese-speaking West Africa (Guinea-Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe), Spanish West Africa (Equitorial Guinuea, Spanish Guinea), Liberia, Congo/Kongo River region, Zaire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian Congo, Cape Verde Island
- DT1001 - DT1190 - Southern Africa
- DT1251 - DT1465 - Angola
- DT1501 - DT1685 - Namibia. South-West Africa
- DT1701 - DT2405 - South Africa
  - Cape Province, Cape of Good Hope, Orange Free State/Oranje Vrystaat, KwaZulu-Natal, Natal, Transvaal, South African Republic
- DT2421 - DT2525 - Botswana. Bechuanaland
- DT2541 - 2686 - Lesotho. Basutoland
- DT2701 - DT2825 - Swaziland
- DT2831 - DT2864 - British Central Africa. Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland
- DT2871 - DT3145 - Zambia. Northern Rhodesia
- DT3161 - DT3257 - Malawi. Nyasaland
- DT3291 - DT3415 - Mozambique

To discover the call number ranges for broader, narrower, or different subjects, consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline.

Books Outside of SHSU

WorldCat (FirstSearch)
Combined catalog for tens of thousands of libraries around the world. Books, journals, musical scores, computer data files, magazines, newspapers, computer programs, manuscript/archive collections, sound recordings, films/slides, maps, video.

Borrow These Books through Interlibrary Loan
TIP: If you are a first-time user creating a new account, enter your home mailing address to verify your residency, as the service works differently for those who live in Walker County, in Houston, or further afield. Select "ILL" as the Delivery Location, and you will pick up books in the Interlibrary Loan office on the first/basement floor of the Library.