An African History of Africa

From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence

De: Zeinab Badawi

Narrado por: Zeinab Badawi

Already a major international bestseller, Zeinab Badawi’s sweeping and much-needed survey of African history traces the continent’s extraordinary legacy from prehistory to the present from the African perspective.

“Equal parts gripping and galvanizing. . . . Researched across more than 30 countries, it brings the dazzling civilizations of pre-colonial Africa vividly to life. A book that feels both long-overdue—and wholly worth the wait.”—British Vogue

Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone.

For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight.

In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history—from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilizations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.

The result is a gripping new account of Africa: an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.

©2025 Zeinab Badawi (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent and well written

What a phenomenally written piece of work. Zeinab’s research was thoroughly conducted. The stories of such fascinating history is compelling and provides a powerful perspective never known or understood by the diaspora in the US. This is our hidden history, now shared with us. Beautifully written!

Excellent book! Everyone should read it. Or listen.

A thorough telling of the history of Africa. The history we were never taught us school. It turns out that Africa had the greatest military tactician in history. His tactics are still taught today. It had universities and schools to rival anything in Europe. And it had warrior queens more fierce than Budica. It is Great book! A must listen!

Simply brilliant!

There was a wealth of new information and everything old felt new again and far more accurate. This text had me researching other sources side by side.

Inspired to Investigate More

This book was excellent. I'm thankful to Zeinab and the team that contributed to skillfully condensing the story of Africa into one book. The stories shed light on periods, cultures and heroes who helped to shape the continent. I'm now more than even inspired to investigate and learn more. Thanks again!

One of a kind

That's right, African history does not start with Slavery or Colonization, nor is it only about Ancient Egypt. This book gets it right, by taking us from pre-history and covering every region of Africa for as much as can fit into a single book. Highly recommended.

Strap in. One of my toughest listens yet.

This is the gut punch in African history that I never knew I needed. There is so much unvarnished detail revealed here in the history leading up to my ancestors' journeys in the slave ships to the Americas. Nzinga…what a complicated figure!

The good news is the author somehow sticks the landing and manages to end on a positive note. Hopefully, this helps to set the course for a brighter future for all of us.

Passionate Storytelling

I really enjoyed the framework of the novel, you can hear the thought and care and excitement throughout the author's narration, it was a breeze to listen to and contained so much new-to-me history and subjects to reflect on.

Important Read

I’m not sure what I was looking for with this purchase. I think a better understanding about Africa with the knowledge that I’ve never learned anything positive about the continent save what I purposed to learn before traveling there myself. But his book is full of heroes unsung in the diaspora and a future that rests on the shoulders of Africa’s young and brilliant people. This book solidified my nudge to repatriate to the Motherland.

To quick accepting bias prospective

I purchased this title months before it was released. I had high hope that Ms. Badawi would be fair and unbiased in her story telling, but after beginning my engagement with this book upon its release I was quite disappointed. First she rightfully harkens back to the origin of all humanity emerging out of Africa and the surviving hominid being Homo Sapien Sapeins and their migrations throughout the world for a variety of migration requirements which had been well documented. Ms. Badawi then deviates by focusing in on one of the most note worthy civilizations she accepts and referred to that civilization as "Egypt", but as we know from documented evidence that this region of Africa she calls Egypt was known as Kemet which existed thousands of years before the name was ever changed to Egypt, but either her naiveté, her English up bringing or just her blind spot she embraces the bigoted Egyptologist without questioning their perspective without ever incorporating that there is an alternative perspective with legitimate evidence of a pre-Egypt fully form civilization called Kemet which existed, and the peoples who inhabited Kemet were black Africans. Ms. Badawi referred to historian Cheikh Anta Diop and his work on the personage of Kemet, but her through-away remarks made it appear as if it was just an emotional response of the Kemet personage. Cheikh Anta Diop beyond being a historian is a well studied scientist in the area of carbon dating and DNA analysis which was used to analyze the remains of ancient Kemetic royalty. Cheikh Anta Diop presented these finding in a in 1971 to UNESCO, an all though challenged the findings were irrefutable. She then goes on and calls Sudan and Ethiopia the region of Kush referring to its glorious history although the same bigoted community changed the borders and name of this region from Kush to Sudan and Ethiopia. I was surprised she so easily harken back to this regions accurate historical name without embracing the European change. I will continue engaging with this work, but I will not allow myself to embrace her findings without substantial unbiased additional research..

Somewhat disappointing

I learned a lot from this book, but the constant need to reiterate that what they were talking about was worth studying, the constant need to juxtapose African and Arab slavery with the worse forms of slavery of the Triangle Trade (which came across as protesting too much about an act that is evil no matter the circumstances), and the phrase “colonial economics, which became developmental economics” bumped this down from a 4 to a 3.

I’d also have liked to get a bit more into the economic history of the continent, and was disappointed that once again the single greatest success story of the continent, Botswana, was completely left out of all discussion.

Still worth the buy and worth the read, I just wanted a bit more.