Threads

Long reads on African history, governance, economics, culture, and what comes next.

All eras Ancient (before 500 CE) Medieval (500–1500 CE) Pre-colonial (1500–1884) Colonial era (1884–1960s) Independence era (1960s–2000) Contemporary (2000–present) Future systems & solutions

Philosophy & Thought Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Equiano's narrative — Vincent Carretta, Paul Lovejoy, and the unresolved authorship question

Olaudah Equiano's *The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African* (1789) is among the most important first-person accounts of the transatlantic slave …

2 min read · West Africa, Diaspora · 40 views

Governance & Political Systems Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Berlin 1884-1885 — reading the primary sources, with Adam Hochschild in hand

The Berlin Conference of November 1884 to February 1885 is treated, in most African high-school curricula, as the moment Africa was 'partitioned' by European powers. The framing is …

2 min read · Pan-African · 20 views

Philosophy & Thought Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Fanon at Blida-Joinville — the psychiatric clinical practice behind the political theory

Frantz Fanon's political writing — *Black Skin, White Masks* (1952), *A Dying Colonialism* (1959), *The Wretched of the Earth* (1961) — is among the most influential post-colonial theoretical …

2 min read · North Africa, Algeria · 25 views

Governance & Political Systems Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Bantustans and their long shadow — apartheid's territorial logic and its successors

The Bantustans — Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, Ciskei, and six other 'self-governing' territories — were the apartheid regime's attempt to resolve a structural contradiction. South Africa needed cheap Black …

2 min read · Southern Africa, South Africa · 26 views