H-Africa – a part of H-Net's consortium of scholarly networks, this is an international scholarly online discussion list on African culture and the African past. H-Africa is a forum for discussions of research interests, teaching methods, and historiography. In addition, H-Africa publishes course materials, announcements of conferences and fellowships, and book reviews. Subscribing to this online discussion forum will provide a window into current discussions about African Studies research and teaching among scholars and students.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] launched the General History of Africa series with a view to remedy the general ignorance on Africa’s history. The challenge consisted of reconstructing Africa’s history, freeing it from racial prejudices ensuing from slave trade and colonization, and promoting an African perspective. African and non African experts research represented 35 years of cooperation between more than 230 historians and other specialists, and was overseen by an International Scientific Committee which comprised two-thirds of Africans.
The complete collection is currently published in eight volumes. All volumes are richly illustrated with maps, charts, figures and diagrams and a selection of black and white photographs. The texts are fully annotated and there is an extensive bibliography and index.
In order to update and complete the collection, UNESCO has recently embarked on the preparation of three new volumes of the GHA. These works aim to update the collection in the light of the latest social, political and archaeological developments, among others, on the continent (Volume IX); to map and analyse the various African diasporas and their contributions to modern societies and to Africa’s emancipation and development (Volume X); and to contribute to the analysis of new challenges Africa and its diasporas are currently facing, and new opportunities that are open to them (Volume XI).
General History of Africa Series
General History of Africa, I: Methodology and African prehistory
General History of Africa, II: Ancient civilizations of Africa
General History of Africa, III: Africa from the seventh to the eleventh century
General History of Africa, IV: Africa from the twelfth to the sixteenth century
General History of Africa, V: Africa from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century
General History of Africa, VI: Africa in the nineteenth century until the 1880s
General History of Africa, VII: Africa under colonial domination, 1880-1935
Initial use of search engines designed to access a large volume of materials can be helpful in scanning the literature about a particular research problem and obtaining an initial understanding of how scholars, journalists, and others have studied your topic of interest. The USC Libraries' search engine only accesses materials owned by the library, but it can be a good place to obtain background information from a variety of scholarly and non-scholarly sources. Google Scholar covers a much broader array of [mostly] scholarly resources but not everything you find may be accessible.
The search option on the USC Libraries main web page provides a single search box with comprehensive access to print and online books, selected digital resources, and full-text journal, magazine, and newspaper articles owned by the USC Libraries or accessible online through subscriptions. Information about using the Libraries' search engine can be found here.
Link to the library catalog where you can search for books, research reports, U.S. government documents, international documents, and other materials either available online or arranged on the book shelves of the libraries at USC [excluding the Law Library].
Google Scholar provides access to mostly scholarly [i.e., peer-reviewed, academic] sources, including scholarly titles from Google Book Search. The search engine has a "Cited by" feature that allows you to track where a particular source has been subsequently cited after publication. Link to Google Scholar from USC Libraries' main web page by scrolling down under list of database "Quick Links." Information about linking into USC Libraries subscription database content so you can search for and access content in Google Scholar without having to go directly to the libraries' website can be found here.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.
Databases for Basic Background Information
The databases listed below enable you to search the contents of dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias, and other reference books in a variety of subject areas or to find scholarly summaries of topics. These databases can be a good place to locate definitive, unbiased explanations of key concepts, theories, and topics as well as biographic profiles and detailed descriptions of historic events. Most of these databases are multidisciplinary and some of their content overlaps, but search more than one database as needed to gain a thorough description of your topic.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.