Reconstructing Africa’s history
In 1964, UNESCO launched a major project to study the General History of Africa with a view to remedy the widespread ignorance of Africa’s past. Unparalleled in its ambition, the project consisted of presenting the continent’s history through an African perspective, freeing it from racial prejudices ensuing from slave trade and colonization. The original collection of eight illustrated volumes covers the continent’s history from the first appearance of human beings up to the end of the 20th century. It took 35 years of cooperation between more than 230 historians and other specialists from Africa and beyond to complete the work.
As of 2020, three additional volumes are being drafted to update the collection on recent social, political, scientific, and archaeological developments, to analyze African diasporas (Volume X on diasporas was published in 2023). This is part of the second phase of UNESCO’s General History of Africa project, launched in 2009, which aims to use the collection to renovate history education in Africa, and to strengthen ties between African people, thereby fostering regional integration and peace.