Bibliographical Essays

Summary

GENERAL

For the years covered in this volume, accessible source materials are far richer than for any other period in the history of Africa. Most of the continent was continuously under the control of literate governments whose archives, in Europe and Africa, have largely survived. Governments have varied greatly in their willingness to open their archives to scholars, but a major advance was made in 1967 when the closed period for access to central government records in Britain was reduced from fifty to thirty years: overnight, key sources for the inter-war period became available to historians. Meanwhile, a mass of documentation had been created by missionaries, businessmen, teachers, journalists and scholars working in Africa. Much of this is still very incompletely known, but there are a number of published guides to archives and other manuscript collections; some are listed below, on p. 880, and others in connexion with appropriate chapters. Government publications. are, with a few exceptions, excluded from the bibliographies in this volume. British territories under the Colonial Office issued government gazettes, annual reports, statistical Blue books, legislative council proceedings and occasional law reports and digests. In addition, reports of commissions and committees of enquiry were published locally and in London. A growing quantity of such documents, together with newspapers and archival records, are being reproduced in microform: a partial list is given in the general bibliography.