Along with Africa, Volume 1 and Volume 2, Volume 3: Colonial Africa, 1885-1939 adopts a new perspective on African history and culture, surveying the wide array of societies and states that have existed on the African continent and introducing readers to the diversity of African experiences and cultural expressions. Toyin Falola has brought together African studies professors from a variety of schools and settings. Writing from their individual areas of expertise, these authors work together to break general stereotypes about Africa, focusing instead on the substantive issues of the African past from an African perspective.
Volume 1, African History Before 1885, introduces students to the various precolonial histories of Africa. Volume 2, African Cultures and Societies Before 1885, provides a broad view of precolonial experiences and expressions in Africa