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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2015
The first of a series of meetings at which material concerning the current status of social research in Africa was considered, was opened by the chairman, the editor of the African Studies Association's forthcoming volume on this topic. At this plenary session John Fage, of the University of London, spoke on recent developments and trends in African history, Arthur Schiller of Columbia University on law, and Joseph Greenberg of Stanford University on linguistics.
Taking historical studies on Africa from their beginning, Dr. Fage indicated that there had been a continuous output of historical material relating to Africa from the time of Herodotus up to the twentieth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the writing of African history ceased to be respectable. One reason for this was a change in the character of historical research, with great emphasis being placed on written sources. By comparison with the western world, Africa was deficient in written history and records, and the attitude that Africa therefore had no history came to prevail. This attitude was not unconnected with the supremacy of Europe, with the feeling that Europe would have to civilize Africa, and it was considered that the study of Africa was the job of the ethnographer rather than the historian. Secondly, there emerged a new branch of historical enquiry, that of colonial history in Africa, with its emphasis on European rather than African activities. The result was that academic historians had no contact with Africa. In fact, however, historical materials on Africa did exist, and in ignoring them the historian had simply left the field to anthropologists, or to amateurs. Anthropologists established a close association with Africa but were little concerned with the past and suspicious of “conjectural history.” Their concentration on simple societies and the relative lack of attention given to political structures kept the social anthropologists from developing too close an interest in African history.