Includes bibliographical references and index.

What is African history? / John Edward Philips -- Archaeology and th e reconstruction of the African past / Susan Keech Mcintosh -- Writing African history from linguistic evidence / Christopher Ehert -- Physica l anthropology and African history / S.O.Y. 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 Thornton -- European docume nts and African history / John Thornton -- Mission and colonial documen ts / Toyin Falola -- Data collection and interpretation in the social h istory of Africa / Isaac Olawale Albert -- African economic history: ap proaches to research / Masao Yoshida -- Signs of time, shapes of though t: the contributions of art history and visual culture to historical me thods in Africa / Henry John Drewal -- Methodologies in Yoruba oral his toriography and aesthetics / Diedre L. Badejo -- 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 -- Writi ng about women: approaches to a gendered perspective in African history / Kathleen Sheldon -- Writing African history / John Edward Philips.