An overview of the ongoing methods used to understand African history.Spurred in part by the ongoing re-evaluation of sources and methods in research, African historiography in the past two decades has been characterized by the continued branching and increasing sophistication of methodologies and areas of specialization. The rate of incorporation of new sources and methods into African historical research shows no signs of slowing. This book is both a snapshot of current academic practice and an attempt to sort through some of the problems scholars face within this unfolding web of sources and methods. The book is divided into five sections, each of which begins with a short introduction by a distinguished Africanist scholar. The first section deals with archaeological contributions to historical research. The second section examines the methodologies involved in deciphering historically accurate African ethnic identities from the records of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The third section mines old documentary sources for new historical perspectives. The fourth section deals with the method most often associated with African historians, that of drawing historical data from oral tradition. The fifth section is devoted to essays that present innovative sources and methods for African historical research. Together, the essays in this cutting-edge volume represent the current state of the art in African historical research. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Christian Jennings is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Section Introduction: Archaeology and History - James DenbowTrouble with Siblings: Archaeological and Historical Interpretation of the West African Past - Christopher DeCorseMaterial Culture and Cadastral Data: Documenting the Cedarberg Frontier, South Africa, 1725-1740 - Laura J. MitchellChronology, Material Culture, and Pathways to the Cultural History of Yoruba-Edo Regioin, 500 B.C.-A.D. 1800 - Akin OgundiranFor Trinkers Such As Beads: A Revalorization of Khosian Labor in Colonial Southern Africa - Edwin WilmsenSection Introduction: Methodology through the Ethnic Lens: The Study of Atlantic Africa - Paul LovejoyPathways to African Ethnicity in the Americas: African National Associations in Cuba during Slavery - Matt ChildsSlave Trade Nomenclature and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Evidence from Early Eighteenth-Century Costa Rica - Russell LohseAfrica in Louisiana: In Search of "Bambara" and Creole Identities in Literary and Statistical Sources - Kevin RobertsSection Introduction: New Approaches to Documentary Sources - Thomas SpearThey Called Themselves Iloikop: Rethinking Pastoralist History in East Africa - Christian JenningsInterpreting Cases, Disentangling Disputes: Court Cases as a Source for Understanding Patron-Client Relationships in Early Colonial LagosColonial Lagos - Kristin MannCapricious Tyrants and Persecuted Subjects: Reading between the Lines of Missionary Records in Precolonial Northern Namibia - Meredith McKittrickNarratives on Pilgrimages to Mecca: Beauty versus History in Mande Oral Tradition - Jan JansenKingship and the Mediators of the Past: Oral Tradition and Ritual Performance in Nupeland, Nigeria - Constanze WeisePassages in a Struggle over the Past: Stories of Maji Maji in Njombe, Tanzania - James GiblinMaisha: Life History and the History of Livelihood along the TAZARA Railway in Tanzania - Jamie MonsonSection Introduction: Innovative Sources and Methods - David HenigeBen and Maggie: Consuming Data: Reasessing Scientific and Anthropological Evidence: Historical Perspective on Nutrition Studies - Cynthia BrantleyElectricity Networks in Africa: A Comparative Study, or How to Write Social History from Economic Sources - Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch"Rain or Shine We Gonna' Rock": Dance Subcultures and Identity Construction in Accra, Ghana - Steven J. SalmSample Surveys: Underexploited Sources for African Social History - Dennis Cordell