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The period covered in this volume is one which begins with the emergence of anti-slave trade attitudes in Europe, and ends on the eve of European colonial conquest. In general the approach in this volume is through chapters focusing on regions of Africa, each written by an established authority in the field.

In eight regional chapters the contributors to this volume, all established experts in their field, bring together for the first time developments the whole of Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A concluding chapter surveys Africa in Europe and the Americas during this period.

The five and a half centuries described in this volume during the period from c.1050 to c.1600, were those in which Iron Age cultures passed from their early and experimental phases into stages of maturity characterized by long-distance trade and complex, many-tiered political systems.

By 1905 most of Africa had been subjected to European rule; in the 1940s, the colonial regimes faced widespread and mounting opposition. Yet the period surveyed in this volume was no mere interlude of enforced quiescence.

Volume VI of The Cambridge History of Africa covers the period 1870-1905, when the European powers (Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and Italy) divided the continent into colonial territories and vied with each other for control over vast tracts of land and valuable mineral resources.

After the prehistory of Volume I, Volume II of The Cambridge History of Africa deals with the beginnings of history. It is about 500 BC that historical sources begin to embrace all Africa north of the Sahara and, by the end of the period, documentation is also beginning to appear for parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Volume I of The Cambridge History of Africa provides the first relatively complete and authoritative survey of African prehistory from the time of the first hominids in the Plio-Pleistone up to the spread of iron technology after c.500 BC.

The eighth and final volume of The Cambridge History of Africa covers the period 1940-75. It begins with a discussion of the role of the Second World War in the political decolonisation of Africa. Its terminal date of 1975 coincides with the retreat of Portugal, the last European colonial power in Africa.