The History of Africa

"As a cradle of human being’s history, Africa is not only a geographical term, but also represents a civilization. Her history shows a unique process of development of human society and culture.
To study this process from the viewpoint of history, we need to know the first of all the division of historical periods, through which we can understand several important stages in the course of her history and better understand Africa today as well.
Secondly, we would like to emphasize that Africa has made its own contribution to the world history. The history of African is a part of the world history. We cannot see Africa today without historical perspective.
Thirdly, we have to pay attention on the history of Sino-African relations. For students, they can do a comparison between Africa and China history; for scholars, compared with Western scholars, Chinese scholars may have certain advantages to know the subject. Moreover,the international media coverage on China-Africa relations has been rapidly multiplied in recent years. This requires that we learn the history of China-Africa relations to make our own judgment on the status quo."