Negroland Revisited

This study examines the development of African historiography in Europe with special emphasis on literature describing the ancient West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, during the "Sudanese Middle Ages" as the period of their flourishing (c. 600–1600 AD) is often called. Chronologically this study reaches from the chronicles of the fifteenth-century Portuguese discoveries to the age of high imperialism. It is argued that the full flowering of the modern historiography of Africa in the mid-nineteenth century was closely related to the contemporary development of Orientalism and the advance in European exploration of the continent. Close attention is also paid to the methodological decline after the colonial conquest.