Includes bibliographical references and index.

What is African history? / John Edward Philips -- Archaeology and the reconstruction of the African past / Susan Keech McIntosh -- Writing African history from linguistic evidence / Christopher Ehret -- Physical anthropology and African history / Shomarka Keita -- The importance of botanical data to historical research on Africa / Dorothea Bedigian -- Oral tradition as a means of reconstructing the past / David Henige -- Oral sources and the challenge of African history / Barbara M. Cooper -- Arabic sources for African history / John Hunwick -- European documents and African history / John Thornton -- Mission and colonial documents / Toyin Falola -- Data collection and interpretation in the social history of Africa / Isaac Olawale Albert --

African economic history : approaches to research / Masao Yoshida -- Signs of time, shapes of thought : the contributions of art history and visual culture to historical methods in Africa / Henry John Drewal -- Methodologies in Yorb̮ òral historiography and aesthetics / Diedre Bd̀ǰo -- Local history in post-independent Africa / Bala Achi -- Africa and world-systems analysis : a post-nationalist project? / William G. Martin -- "What Africa has given America" : African continuities in the North American diaspora / Joseph E. Holloway -- History and memory / Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu -- Writing about women : approaches to a gendered perspective in African history / Kathleen Sheldon -- Writing African history / John Edward Philips.