Dates: 4 February-1 March 2013 (every Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
Time: 11:00-12:00
Venue: Humanities Building 1-5, University of Pretoria, Hatfield Campus
No RSVP necessary

History is usually written by the winners. A century ago, people of European descent controlled 90% of the planet’s land and they have dominated representations of world society before and since then. But we live at a time when all that is palpably changing, a situation manifested in the rise of the BRICS to challenge western hegemony. Africa too is rapidly increasing its share of world population and economic growth. World society is still in large part a racial order based on colour with black people assigned the bottom rung. The coming century offers the real prospect of a rapid end to this. After all, China was the poorest and most violent region in the world during the 1930s and look at it now.

What does world history look like from an African perspective? These lectures are not a survey, but each lecture will rather examine one or more outstanding books addressing various aspects of this topic, arranged roughly in a historical sequence. Every one of these books, a good portion of them written by Africans and members of the African diaspora, has inspired the lecturer. This is lecturing for belief, not lecturing for knowledge. The lectures are intended as a guide to reading and a stimulus to personal research.

See full course outline at:  /media/shared/Legacy/sitefiles/file/46/15156/Invitation%20-%20Africa%20World%20History%20lecture%20series(2).pdf