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Alla fine del sec. XV, gli Europei scopritori dell'Africa occidentale trovarono che il cavallo era impiegato nel Benin e nei vicini paesi yoruba. Poiché non si conosce l'esistenza di antenati selvatici dell'Equus caballus in questa o in alcuna altra zona dell'Africa, si trattava di equini importati. Sulla base di argomenti zoologici, archeologici, storici ed etnologici, il presente articolo intende chiarire tempi e modi di tale introduzione.Il cavallo e anche qui essenzialmente animale da guerra e simbolo di prestigio sociale: il suo arrivo, dall'Africa settentrionale per via del Sahara, è connesso con l'impiego del carro da guerra. L'A. discute brevemente le questioni della iniziale domesticazione equina, dell'uso e della diffusione dei carri ippotrainati, delle singolari raffigurazioni di questi nello stile del «galoppo volante» tipico dell'arte minoico-micenea e presente tra l'altro nelle figurazioni rupestri sahariane; e delle presumibili relazioni commerciali che dovettero indirettamente collegare quest'ultima area, e quella del Mediterraneo occidentale nell'eta del bronzo, con le zone oltre il Sahara. Di qui, secondo l'A., giunse il cavallo nel bacino del Niger, mentre piu deboli sono considerate le possibilita di connessione degli stati dell'Africa occidentale con Kush e Meroe. Se però l'evidenza archeologica suggerisce per tali contatti epoche non posteriori al II millennio a.C., queste appaiono di molto anteriori ai tempi in cui si presume siano sorti in Africa occidentale stati in grado di sfruttare corpi di caval- leria: il piu antico stato locale di cui si abbia notizia, il Ghana, non risale a prima del IV sec. d.C. Fra le ipotesi relative al destino del cavallo in queste zone durante il lungo e oscuro intervallo, l'A. tende a scartare quella di un rinselvatichimento della specie come si sa essere avvenuto in America; egli pensa piuttosto a un uso del cavallo come animale da sacrificio, o a un suo persistente impiego per il traino di carri; meno probabile il suo uso come cavalcatura, prevalso poi in epoca moderna. La piu antica varieta di Equus presente in Africa occidentale sarebbe infatti, secondo l'A., una razza di ponies di piccole dimensioni, poco atta a essere cavalcata; piu tardo sarebbe l'arrivo della piu robusta varieta berbera, di quella araba, di quella dongolana. Comunque impiegato agli inizi, il cavallo contribuì a trasformare in senso militare le ancor piccole comunita dell'area sudanese-guineana viventi di coltivazione e allevamento di tipo «neolitico»; e i contatti trans-sahariani che accompagnarono l'introduzione del nuovo nobile animale dovettero incoraggiare la fondazione dei primi stati della zona.

In this article I argue that what enabled affiliation to the larger political project against apartheid was precisely the production of a subject that was always, and necessarily, threaded through a structure of racial capitalism. This hinders the emergence of a history of colonialism and nationalism that theorises and historicises the relations of knowledge and power.In what I am calling a postcolonial critique of apartheid, I make explicit the way the question of knowledge and power was often exchanged for historicist constructions of historical change, especially in relation to the transition from the apartheid to the postapartheid. Tangential to my argument is a reminder of the way the native question in the first half of the twentieth-century produced a disciplinary upheaval in South African knowledge projects by combining the impulses drawn from colonial discourse and nationalist anti-colonial narration. Herein we might encounter the problem of South African radical historiography, and its concomitant constructions of the postapartheid.

A narrative of the history of regional co-operation in Africa as an aspect of the human factor. ; In discussing the historical significance of regional co-operation in Africa, it is imperative to explain problems which have hindered co-operation, noting in particular, the effects of colonialism on the quality of the African Human Factor (HF) which is cardinal to the development of any organization, institution, region or country. Two main forms of regional co-operation existed before the invasion of Africa by Arab and European imperialism.These were commercial long-distance trade and the political formation of large states through the unification of several small ones. In suggesting how present day Africa could evolve new forms of regional cooperation, emphasis in this regard should be placed on developing the appropriate HF first which would be capable of bringing about the desired co-operation. ; International Institute of Human Factor Development

AbstractThis study is rooted in the move by the South African government at the turn of the 21stcentury to spearhead the conception of what then President Thabo Mbeki referred to as anAfrican Renaissance. This move entailed cultivating an African consciousness; educationbeing one of the key tools. With textbooks still playing a critical role in the educationsystem, I analysed South African National Curriculum Statement-compliant historytextbooks in order to understand the construction of the African being. I employed a criticaldiscourse analysis methodology to analyse a sample of four contemporary South Africanhistory textbooks with a focus on the chapters that deal with post-colonial Africa. At adescriptive level of analysis, the textbooks construct the African being as five-dimensional:the spatial, the physical, the philosophical, the cultural and the experiential notions. Theinterpretation is that the African being is constructed as multidimensional. I usepostcolonial theory to explain that while the macro-level of power produces the dominantdiscourses, the micro-level of the citizen also contributes to the discourses that permeate thehistory textbooks. Indeed, the production of textbooks is influenced by multifarious factorsthat when the discourses from the top and from below meet at the meso-level of textbookproduction, there is not just articulatio

African and Africanists scholars formed the intellectual wing of African nationalism; which triumphed in the attainment of political independence of the former colonial possessions in the 1960s. In the course of the nationalist struggle, it was held out that African underdevelopment was coursed by the unequal economic relations between the colonies and the metropolitan countries. Walter Rodney in a brilliant analysis of the low economic situation of the continent held out the prospects of rapid economic advancement of the continent once this colonial hegemony - which came at the heels of the abolition of the over four hundred years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade - was laid to rest. Other scholars pointed out paths to political Stability which, it is generally accepted, is a sine qua non of economic development. Regrettably, almost sixty years on, the African continent is still enmeshed in the backwaters of world economic progress. The Rodney thesis no longer suffices as an explanation of African economic underdevelopment. More so when juxtaposed with some Asian countries which gained political independence contemporaneously with African states. This paper attempts to answer the question of where and why did African political elite get It wrong? By so doing deepen our understanding of the African economic crisis and proffer ways of meeting the challenges so posed.

(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references (page xvi) and index. ; (System Details) Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. ; (Statement of Responsibility) selected and edited with an introduction by G.W. Eybers, M.A.

Teaching Sub-Saharan African history and geography courses in the Western parts of the world can be challenging since the media often equip students with the idea that the continent is broken and helpless (Mason, 2012). Course content has the potential to change stereotypical perceptions of Africa by portraying the continent's achievements in culture, economy, health, and politics. If not well facilitated, students may complete courses without shifting perspectives; for that reason, this workshop will prepare potential instructors with strategies to support students in learning a balanced view of Africa. Using insights from Davis (2004) and Gugler (2010), potential instructors in this workshop will learn how to contextualize Africa within a larger world history, critically debate relevant topics, and identify films that possess contextual and historical situations to deconstruct African stereotypes.

The history of colonialism, as well as the internationalisation of research over the past decades, have significantly influenced research ethics standards in African countries. (Kruger et al, 2014). Historically, developments of guidelines in research ethics, and ethics review processes, have often been reactive responses to critical events (i.e. ethics breaches) in medical research practice. According to Global Policy Forum - GPF (2014), Africa is a continent endowed with immense natural and human resources as well as great cultural, ecological and economic diversity but remains underdeveloped. World Population Review places Africa as the least- developed continent outside of Antarctica, with many of its countries still mired in issues including poverty, government corruption, and armed conflict (2022). Health is considered as a basis of development, therefore ''good health is a cornerstone of economic progress, a multiplier of society's human resources, and, ultimately, the primary objective of development'' (Chen & Berlinguer, 2001), especially in developing countries. The capacity to develop local guidelines in developing countries may either not exist or be deemed unnecessary given the plethora of international guidelines. Despite such guidelines, there are limitations as to the extent to which they can be applied to research that involves human subjects. Research in developing countries creates a greater risk of exploitation as individuals or communities in developing countries assume the risks of research, whereas most of the benefits may accrue to people in developed countries (Wertheimer, 1999).

School history textbooks are seen to embody ideological messages about whose history is important, as they aim both to develop an 'ideal' citizen and teach the subject of history. Since the 1940s, when the first study was done, there have been studies of South African history textbooks that have analysed different aspects of textbooks. These studies often happen at a time of political change (for example, after South Africa became a republic in 1961 or post-apartheid) which often coincides with a time of curriculum change. This article provides an overview of all the studies of South African history textbooks since the 1940s. We compiled a data base of all studies conducted on history textbooks, including post graduate dissertations, published journal articles, books and book chapters. This article firstly provides a broad overview of all the peer-reviewed studies, noting in particular how the number of studies has increased since 2000. The second section then engages in a more detailed analysis of the studies that did content analysis of textbooks. We compare how each study has engaged with the following issues: the object of study, the methodological approach, the sample of textbooks and the theoretical or philosophical orientation. The aim is to provide a broad picture of the state of textbook analysis studies over the past 75 years, and to build up a database of these studies so as to provide an overview of the nature of history textbook research in South Africa. ; http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2223-0386/2015/nl4a7

An old analogy pictures human society as a giant organism composed of many structures, all functioning in an integrated way to maintain the whole system, just as our livers, lungs, kidneys and other organs function to maintain the vitality of our entire body. Therefore, for anyone to understand any given structure, one must determine its function in society. This has given rise to what is known as the structural-functional school of sociology or more briefly, as functionalism. In the same vein, the main stream of history has to do with human development. Throughout history, man has had to meet challenges such as earning a living, dwelling together in harmony with fellow-men, establishing a just and efficient government, expressing his creative talents, and achieving a satisfactory spiritual life. The present has grown out of the past, and if we want to understand our contemporary world, we shall have to look at its roots in history. This paper, therefore, is an attempt at reconciling these symbiotic concepts – History and functionalism and showing how indispensable they are in the Contemporary African Society. To this end therefore, this paper shall focus on the theory of functionalism in various perspectives and its application to African history. DOI:10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n6p225

This paper will lay out the structure of a Gramscian-Marxist framework for the analysis of modern African history. This framework is built around core Marxist understandings of capitalist processes and class relations, with emphasis on the specifically Gramscian developments around the nature of the state, and ideas of hegemony, common sense, and the role of organic intellectuals. This also incorporates developing ideas in the area of Uneven and Combined Development, and insights from World Systems Theory, on how relations between core and peripheral states also impact the underlying class dynamics. This framework creates a narrative of shifting power relations and ideological paradigms over the last century, which gives the necessary context for understanding recent events in African politics. Thus a broad narrative of global history over this period will be presented, with specific reference to the African situation. This paper is intended as a broad background paper to Benjamin Hale's paper, 'ANC and Capital: Aspirations to Hegemony'. The paper is published as part of the 39th Annual African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) Conference Proceedings 2017.

In 'The Rise and Fall of Afrikaner Women' (2003), Gilliomee argues that Afrikaner women's history 'is the biggest untold story of the Afrikaner people', and in doing so ignores the research on Afrikaner women's history. This ignoring of women's history may be attributed either to orthodoxy in historical writing or the lack of a review on women's history despite a relatively large body of work, focussing in particular on Afrikaner women. Although contributions to women's history come out of a wide range of disciplines, including literary theory, political science, anthropology and history proper, it is my contention that there is a definable trend developing in South African historiography which particularly represents the history of Afrikaner women. This article explicitly shows that the history of Afrikaner women is not untold through a review of the contributions of scholars whose work form part of (what I call) the historiography of Afrikaner women. This article not only contextualises Afrikaner women's history against the backdrop of tendencies in historical writing but also focuses on the major themes in the historiography of Afrikaner women, including identity, political agency, labour, welfare, class, reproduction and particularly the ongoing debate of the 'volksmoeder' ; http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rshj20/current ; http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rshj20/current ; DOI:10.1080/02582473.2013.770061

This article examines different paradigms of conversions to Christianity in regions of Africa prior to the advent of colonial modernity. Religious change, in general, connected converts and various intermediaries to resources and power within specific settings. Even though African cultures were oral, conversions generated the production of texts which became important print media and were at least partly responsible for prompting conversions elsewhere in the world. The first case study explains how mission initiatives along the so-called West African slave coast almost always resulted in failure between 1450 and 1850, but how these failed efforts figure as important halfway options which reveal fundamental mechanisms of conversion. The dynamics of interaction were different in the African Kingdom of Kongo, where conversions became intimately entwined in the consolidation of political power and where, subsequent to the adoption of Christianity, new understandings of power evolved. Last but not least, in South Africa, again, another paradigm of conversion developed within the nexus of conflict and settler violence. Contested narratives of Christianity and conversion emerged as settlers tried to keep Christianity as a religious resource to be shared among whites only.

The early twenty-first century evidenced a worldwide change in History teaching through the means of several revised History curricula in the further education and training (FET) phase (high schools) and the developments of textbooks as a result of this. In South Africa, these trends have coincided with a period of educational transformation since the African National Congress took over as the leading political party in 1994. After close to 15 years, the transformational outcome also marked a change in the approach to History in the school curriculum and textbooks. This paper is structured to concisely debate globalisation and national narratives as foci in South Africa's revised History curriculum within current transcontinental reflections in history teaching. The implementation of these aspects in the revised South African History curriculum in the FET phase for specifically the Grade 12 level regarding textbook writing is only shortly discussed, accentuated, and critically analysed.

In 2014, South Africa celebrated 20 years of democracy. Within these 20 years of democracy, there were many changes in the education sector. The teaching of history, particularly South African history, has survived many challenges during and after apartheid. During the apartheid era, to a certain extent the teaching of South African history was subjected to political abuse and became a springboard of politicians to justify the existence of the racial divide that had previously engulfed the country. Equally, the study offers critical and epistemological criticisms levelled against the teaching of South African history in secondary schools in the post-apartheid era. The selected criticisms include, inter alia, the question of the relevance of history in post-apartheid South Africa; the limitations of further political abuse of the discipline by educators, as well as the politicians; the lack of analytical skills in the teaching and interpretation of historical facts; and the notion of further perpetuating the racial divide in the country which was once riddled by such divisions. Epistemologically, earlier selected criticisms which took place during the apartheid era will also be referred to, to demonstrate that the teaching of South African history has always been subjected to criticisms that advantaged the then ruling National Party's (NP's) government in South Africa. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p2303