An essential overview of great kingdoms in African history and their legacies, written by world-leading experts.

From the ancient Nile Valley to the savannas of medieval West Africa, the highlands of Ethiopia and on to the forests, lakes and grasslands to the south, African civilizations have given rise to some of the world’s most impressive kingdoms. Yet Africa’s history is often little known beyond the devastation wrought by the slave trade and European colonial rule. In this groundbreaking book, nine leading historians of Africa take a fresh look at these great kingdoms and empires over five thousand years of recorded history.

How was kingship forged in Africa and how did it operate? Was dynastic power maintained by consent or by coercion? Did kings – and queens – display and project that power for all to see, or did they hide it away, as beneath the fringed crowns that concealed the faces of sacred Yoruba rulers? In what ways have African peoples themselves recorded, celebrated and critiqued the deeds of their kings? Great Kingdoms of Africa explores some of the most important questions in the continent’s deep past.

'With contributions from an array of leading historians, this is a vital work that corrects the tendency to define Africa’s past by European colonisation ' - The Irish Times
'An enlightening non-colonial history' - Geographical
'This book is useful in invigorating new interests in the understanding of Africa’s past and present, especially its history of creativity' - RA Magazine

John Parker taught the History of Africa at SOAS University of London from 1998 to 2020. He is the co-author of African History: A Very Short Introduction (2007), co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History (2013), and the author of In My Time of Dying: A History of Death and the Dead in West Africa (2021).