Accessible Africa
Teaching and Learning About an Unfamiliar Past
Will be published approx. on 23. July 2026
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-1-4758-7456-3 (ISBN)
Description
Accessible Africa: Teaching and Learning About an Unfamiliar Pastprovides educators ranging from middle school to high school an accessible account of the major developments in African history, paired with pedagogical strategies and approaches related to teaching the continent's past. Based on decades of teaching African history at the collegiate and high school levels, it became clear to Cleveland and Panzer that most students had learned very little about Africa - beyond the Transatlantic Slave Trade - prior to arriving in their classrooms. This absence is not surprising, as educators readily admit that they do not feel comfortable teaching about Africa because they feel both unqualified and uninformed. Accessible Africa addresses these issues by providing both accessible content and associated teaching strategies related toroughly the past 5,000 years of African history, up to and including contemporary developments on the continent. Major historical themes include trade routes, slave trades, imperialism and colonialism, decolonization, and modern Africa.
Reviews / Votes
As a teacher of African history since 1995, and a teacher of teachers, I can attest to the need for this book. The vast majority of people who teach secondary school history have had little or no formal instruction on the history of Africa. Thus, if such a teacher wished to deepen their engagement with African history in their own classes, they would be facing a daunting challenge trying to manage their crowded instructional schedule and their lack of knowledge about the continent, to get up to speed. This book is invaluable for helping the time-pressed instructor know where to start. Each of the short chapters gives a clear, accessible narrative overview of the key elements of the history for that theme and time, and offers valuable starting points for discussion topics, essential questions around which to structure lessons, and go-to internet and book sources for further reading. -- Wendy Urban-Mead * Associate Professor of History, The Master of Arts in Teaching Program, Bard College and The Bard Prison Initiative *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
15 b/w figures
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4758-7456-3 (9781475874563)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Todd Cleveland is a professor of African history at the University of Arkansas. He has also taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Minnesota, James Madison University, the University of Ghana, and Augustana College (Illinois). He has written seven books (including two that were subsequently translated and published in Portuguese), all of which revolve around various aspects of Africa's past, and present, and has also published scholarly articles on pedagogical strategies and approaches related to teaching African history. At the University of Arkansas, Todd received the Master Teacher award and was inducted into the institution's Teaching Academy, the two most significant teaching honors that the university bestows.
Michael G. Panzer is an adjunct professor of history at Marist College and a full-time high school teacher at Roy C. Ketcham High School. He has been teaching for 26 years. He has also worked part-time at Mount Saint Mary College (History Department) and at the University at Albany - SUNY (Africana Studies Department). His research focuses on Mozambican history, nationalism, refugee history, and state-formation during the 1960s in southern Africa. His previous work has appeared in the Journal of Southern African Studies (2009), Social Dynamics (2013), and the Portuguese Journal of Social Science (2015).
Michael G. Panzer is an adjunct professor of history at Marist College and a full-time high school teacher at Roy C. Ketcham High School. He has been teaching for 26 years. He has also worked part-time at Mount Saint Mary College (History Department) and at the University at Albany - SUNY (Africana Studies Department). His research focuses on Mozambican history, nationalism, refugee history, and state-formation during the 1960s in southern Africa. His previous work has appeared in the Journal of Southern African Studies (2009), Social Dynamics (2013), and the Portuguese Journal of Social Science (2015).
Content
List of figures
List of maps
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ancient and Medieval Africa, c. 3000 BCE-1500 CE
Chapter 2: The Slave Trades in African History
Chapter 3: The Gradual, then Rapid, European "Scramble" for Africa
Chapter 4: Consolidating and Maintaining Control in African Territories
Chapter 5: Decolonizing Africa
Chapter 6: Africa in the late Twentieth Century, 1960's-1990s
Epilogue: Africa in the 21st Century: Which Way Forward
List of maps
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ancient and Medieval Africa, c. 3000 BCE-1500 CE
Chapter 2: The Slave Trades in African History
Chapter 3: The Gradual, then Rapid, European "Scramble" for Africa
Chapter 4: Consolidating and Maintaining Control in African Territories
Chapter 5: Decolonizing Africa
Chapter 6: Africa in the late Twentieth Century, 1960's-1990s
Epilogue: Africa in the 21st Century: Which Way Forward