Why we need to take the long view of African economies

In interviews with GCSE students across a range of school contexts, Abigail Branford found that many young people regarded Africa as an economic ‘dead zone’ prior to colonial intervention. This conception, as Branford briefly illustrates, is at profound odds with current historical scholarship; yet it persists. In seeking to support history teachers in challenging this perception, Branford took note of the obstacles that the teachers identified as frustrating their ambitions: most notably, gaps in subject knowledge and the limited availability of appropriate resources.  This article, co-written with historian Peter Brooke, is presented as a partial solution to those obstacles. It focuses largely on substantive history (rather than on ways of teaching that history), bringing African agency to the fore within, and beyond, imperial economic structures, and pointing to specific resources and enquiry approaches that the authors hope teachers will find helpful...