African Perspectives on European Colonialism

“This is a big-hearted, shrewd and well-read book, full of a qualified optimism all too rare nowadays in books about Africa.”
—Journal of African History

“A perceptive, well-balanced evaluation of the colonial impact.”
—African Affairs

“The major contribution of this work is its sketch of a sort of African alternative or antidote to colonialism….”
—Africa

“Here is the story [of European colonialism in Africa] from the other side: it serves as a needed corrective to the ubiquitous Eurocentric point of view.”
—Choice

In this book, one of the pioneers of twentieth century African history examines the perceptions and responses of Africans to European colonialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This edition of Boahen’s text, originally published in 1989, is contextualized in a new foreword by John Lonsdale, updating some of Boahen’s findings and interpretations while maintaining that the “best, totally unambiguous, legacy of this republication would surely be the inspiration of a new generation of African scholars, locally based, as clear-minded and outspoken as Adu Boahen himself.”