Primary source documents are valuable learning resources preferred by many teachers because they give student the chance to decipher and interpret the history themselves. Africa and the West presents a range of hard-to-find primary source documents on Africa from the slave trade that started in the early part of the fifteenth century to independence and the problems of the post-colonial period.

WILLIAM H. WORGER is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Trained in African history at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and at Yale University, he is the author of South Africa's City of Diamonds. Professor Worger has also taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and at Stanford University.

NANCY L. CLARK is Professor of History at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she also directs the University's honors program. She is the author of Manufacturing Capital: State Corporations in South Africa. Currently she is at work on a history of South Africa during World War II, focusing especially on the impact of the war on African and female workers.

EDWARD A. ALPERS is a Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Alpers is former dean of honors and undergraduate programs at UCLA, as well as former president of the African Studies Association, the largest international scholarly organization devoted to the study of Africa.