What if Africa told its own history?
Zeinab Badawi's African History of Africa did not quite live up to its admirable and long overdue ambition.
It’s a great concept — Africa taking back the narrative of its rich and complex history, telling its own story.
The intention is admirable, if not extremely ambitious. Unfortunately, I finished this book feeling like the execution had not lived up to the ambition. Though the content itself had potential to be interesting (indeed, was objectively interesting), the presentation had me almost giving up halfway through.
As one Amazon reviewer put it:
“Every African scholar Bedawi meets is described with a superlative… Everywhere Bedawi goes, she is at once "welcomed" by local people who share their stories... Overall, the writing feels like a Disney documentary, or like something from an old copy of the National Geographic, and it can be quite irritating.”
Ultimately, reading An African History of Africa felt like little more than ‘this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and then I went there’ — a history textbook turned into rather bland journalism.
I wish I had a more positive review for this book, but it’s not one I’d recommend. For a more engaging introduction to Africa (less of a historical recount), I much preferred Diplo Fayan’s Africa is Not a Country.
Author: Zeinab Badawi
About: Rewriting the story of Africa from an African perspective
Rating: 3/5
Did you read An African History of Africa? Let me know what you thought.
Related reads:
Africa is Not a Country (Diplo Fayan, 2022)
