You updated your password.

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

Reset Password

Enter the email address you used to create your account. We will email you instructions on how to reset your password.

Forgot Your Email Address? Contact Us

Rated 2 out of 5 by Nick Name from The African Experience He's a stutterer! I couldn't stand waitung for him to make an actual statement.

Date published: 2025-07-08

Rated 4 out of 5 by GermanHistoryFan from Thousands of Years in One Continent Africa south of the Sahara Desert has been rich in history despite its dismissive epithet in Western tradition as the “Dark Continent.” In this course, Kenneth P. Vickery describes its geography and provides an overview of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial society, politics, and economy. He tends to lecture slowly and sometimes hesitantly, but improves somewhat when dealing with southern Africa, his area of greatest expertise. Vickery did his research among the Tonga in today’s Zambia. South Africa gets pride of place in Lectures 15 through 18, 26, and 32. Life in Africa has always been challenging for humans, an ironic fact for a species that evolved in its eastern and southern lands. They have suffered from parasites and diseases, including--since the 1980s--AIDS (Lecture 34). Most of the continent consists of arid savanna or wet rainforest, neither suitable for intensive cereal agriculture. And yet people make do. In the savanna they cultivate millet or sorghum. In the rainforest they raise New World crops like yam, manioc, and tapioca. In much of the continent maize is a staple. Cattle are unable to live in the rainforests because of sleeping sickness, but in southern Africa they supply people with milk and manure, and store savings from wage labor. Before the colonial era, most of Africa consisted of stateless societies resting upon ties of kinship, age set, and religion. Indigenous cults focused devotion on local gods, places, and/or ancestors (as many still do). The earliest states emerged in the Nile River Valley—Egypt, of course, and Nubia—the highlands of Ethiopia, and the Sahel, a band of savanna territory that hosted in succession the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Ethiopia converted to Christianity while Islam spread across the Sahel and westward from the coastal slave-trading ports of East Africa. Great Zimbabwe in the south completes the first third of this course in Lecture 12. And then the Europeans arrived. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, they traded especially for slaves for use in the Americas. Estimates put the number landed at between ten and fifteen million, but for each one who arrived, up to five died between the point of capture in Africa and the end of the voyage. This horror wound down in the nineteenth century, when the British decided that suppressing it would promote their economic interests. Beginning around 1880, the European powers marched troops into the African interior, drew borders to mark off territories, and established formal administrations. All aimed to control the continent’s minerals and to create sources of cash crops. European settlers established themselves in southern Africa as farmers, miners, skilled workers, and masters of African labor. South Africa was one of the longest-lasting colonies, serving as a port for European ships in the late 1600s, a settler and plantation colony in the 1700s, and an exporter of diamonds and gold in the late 1800s. Legislation, labor discrimination and social practice divided workers into a privileged white minority and a massive, non-voting black majority. Formal colonialism didn’t last long. By the early 1960s African nationalist parties pushed out Britain and France with a combination of agitation and civil disobedience. Portugal forced the peoples of Mozambique and Angola to fight for their freedom until 1975. The last holdouts were white-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa, which finally conceded black majority rule in 1980 and 1994. Even so, postcolonial Africa looks a lot like colonial Africa. Stateless peoples now live within states whose borders reflect European agreements of the 1880s and 90s. Central government bureaucrats and district officials remain at their jobs, though African rather than European. Economies still depend on exporting minerals and cash crops. Additional legacies include energetic churches, print and broadcast media, mass politics, civil society, an obsession with ethnicity and the notion of “development.” Unfortunately, Africa’s independence hasn’t been the wholesale blessing its advocates hoped for. After a decade of economic growth, rising literacy, and declining mortality, African states fell prey to corruption, declining terms of international trade, unmanageable debt, and harsh structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund. Founding African leaders almost uniformly walked a short path from dissident to dictator. Three countries have suffered so badly that Vickery has devoted entire lectures to them: Congo, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe (Lectures 25, 33 and 35). African history has also been the story of individuals. Many are heads of postcolonial states, like Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, and of course Nelson Mandela, but there are also interesting precolonial figures like missionary Reverend Samel Crowther and Nigerian merchant prince Ja Ja, deposed and imprisoned by the treacherous British. Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe receives several mentions, and Vickery ends the course with four talented and altruistic people who give him hope for Africa’s future. This course is a good starting point for Africa, but I hope the Great Courses will publish more with specific regional and temporal concentrations like Nathan Fluellen’s Discovering West Africa (2023), which I have purchased but not yet watched.

Date published: 2025-06-01

Rated 5 out of 5 by ReinHold from African Experience From "Lucy" to Mandela I am just a curious mind, I have purchased at least 75 courses from The Great Courses, I am only half way thru the lectures, but because it is a closeout DVD, I will comment now. The lecturer is exceptional in knowledge, presentation and passion, don't let it slip away.

Date published: 2025-03-09

Rated 3 out of 5 by EngineerinVA from Failed Potential This is a broad and sweeping overview of the culture and history of an important continent – Africa – although that overview does not view all parts of Africa evenly. It addresses Southern Africa much more than West Africa or the Muslim nations of Northern Africa The course includes both national/people group lectures and topical lectures. There are multiple lectures on South Africa and Zimbabwe and also single lectures on Ethiopia and the Congo. Topical lectures include AIDS and the Rwanda genocide. This course had the potential to be good. The subject is of historical, modern political, and commercial importance in our world. There has been much drama in Africa. Yet, relatively little is known by the general (Western) public about Africa. Except for the courses on Egypt, this is the only offering by The Great Courses (TGC) focusing on Africa in contrast to the many courses on Greece, Rome, and European history. Unfortunately, the course falls flat, primarily because Dr. Vickery is not up to TGC standards as a lecturer. His presentation style is a bit stiff. He does not connect with the electronic listener. He loves his subject and is knowledgeable about his topic but he seems a bit ill-at-ease in front of the camera. The course guide is average by TGC standards. It is in outline format as opposed to paragraph or bullet format. It has many useful maps embedded in the lectures. It averages about 5 pages per lecture, which seems to be a little low by TGC standards. It has a useful timeline, a glossary, biographical notes, references to internet resources, and a bibliography that includes a note on how the resource might be useful. I used the video version. There were some useful graphics such as maps. However, I think that the audio version would be just about as good. The course was published in 2006.

Date published: 2023-05-11

Rated 5 out of 5 by DaGeek from Fascinating and enjoyable I have no idea if this is outdated as another reviewer stated, nature of the beast is that you cannot recount history past the date of creation. Not sure what the copyright date of the course is. But I learned so much about Africa and African history that I had no knowledge about before hand. The American school system concentrates on European and American history, and more or less ignores most African history. This course whetted my appetite to learn more about this huge, complex continent. The first part of the course dragged a bit, but we persevered and both I and my wife very much enjoyed the rest of the course. The more I learn of Europeans on this continent, the more abhorred I am about their hubris. But then again it is the same story wherever on the globe they decided dominate the local populations. If you want a survey of a complex history frequently ignored in our schools, this is for you.

Date published: 2022-10-25

Rated 4 out of 5 by annenyc from This was a very helpful introductory course I found this a very helpful introduction to a complex topic. I would definitely recommend it to others as a starting point for further study.

Date published: 2022-09-13

Rated 3 out of 5 by RobJ from Interesting and informative history of Africa I'm about half way through and it's quite informative. There are however some glaring errors that, whilst appearing minor, reflect badly on the integrity of the information. In an early lecture an example picture of an African compared with an Indian elephant were both Indian - African elephants have much larger ears! In lecture 13, when discussing the slave trade, the lecturer repeatedly confused latitude and longitude - longitude is pole to pole, latitude is parallel to the equator! How did such a fundamental misunderstanding get through the proofing stage? It is suggested that the Bantu people may have migrated to the far south of Africa prior to European colonisation. There is no evidence of this at all. The Cape had long been inhabited by the San and Khoekhoe peoples - no Bantu. Only in the late 1700s did European colonists gradually expanding eastward up the coast encounter the Xhosa, who were being pushed south by the Zulu, in the region of the Great Fish River resulting in the Xhosa wars of the late 1700s. There were no other Bantu tribes in the Cape colony.

Date published: 2022-04-14

Rated 4 out of 5 by MartyVA from Good overview I was looking for a review of Africa. I frankly know very little about its history and was interested in an such an overview. I thought the professor did exactly that. With any 36-session course, there are some lectures that were of more interest and some of less but I feel like I have come away with a much greater understanding of Africa - the history, geography, politics, effects of colonialism. My only suggestion is that the course needs to be updated for developments in the last 15 years.

Date published: 2021-12-24

01: Finding the “Lost Continent”

To many in the Western world, Africa is the “Lost Continent” - lost from view and lost because of its human and natural disasters. This lecture lays out a road map for “finding” Africa by examining its uniquely long history of human activity. The basic themes of the course are also presented.

32 min

02: Africa's Many Natural Environments

Africa's varied geography includes savanna, desert, and rain forest, which are produced by the interaction of latitude, temperature, rainfall, elevation, and topography. This Lecture characterizes these zones by specific flora and fauna and by the potential to support human societies or harm them through disease.

32 min

03: A Virtual Tour of the Great Land

Embarking on an imaginary tour of the continent, this lecture starts at the Cape of Good Hope, travels through southern Africa, leaps northward to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Great Rift Valley, the Sahara, and the great rain forests of West Africa and the Congo Basin, and ends with Victoria Falls.

28 min

04: The Cradle of Humankind

Humankind emerged first in Africa, as shown by fossils found by Raymond Dart, the Leakeys, Donald Johanson, and others - evidence recently bolstered by DNA studies. What were the first human societies in Africa like? What tools did they use? Are there still people in Africa living in this style?

31 min

05: Crops, Cattle, Iron - Taming a Continent

A few thousand years ago, life in Africa was revolutionized by the cultivation of crops and the domestication of livestock. The change was reinforced by the spread of a new and incredibly useful metal: iron. This Iron Age Package of innovations led to settled kingdoms and extensive trading networks.

30 min

06: Kinship and Community - Societies Take Shape

Family and descent groups in Africa have assumed particular forms. This lecture focuses on monogamy versus polygamy and on the importance of unilineal descent groups, lineages, and clans. The nature of ethnicity in Africa is discussed, as well as the roles enjoyed by - or imposed on - women.

31 min

07: Like Nothing Else - The Ancient Nile Valley

Although Egypt lies outside the course's focus on sub-Saharan Africa, its importance cannot be ignored in understanding the history of Africa. This lecture looks at ancient Egypt in the context of the Nile, linking it to centers of culture and power further south, such as Nubia, Kush, and Meroe.

30 min

08: Soul and Spirit - Religion in Africa

Religion has always held a central place in African cultures. What are the common characteristics of the hundreds of indigenous religions across the continent, with their multiplicity of deities and spirits? And what has been the long-run impact on Africa of two great world religions - Christianity and Islam?

30 min

09: Ethiopia - Outpost of Christianity

For well over 1,000 years there was only one place in Africa where Christianity could be called the dominant religion: Ethiopia. This lecture examines the long and unique history of Ethiopia, including its monastic traditions and astonishing churches carved out of solid rock.

31 min

10: West Africa's Golden Age

Between about 400 and 1600, the West African savanna was dominated by a succession of major kingdoms and empires. This lecture explores the rise, development, and eventual decline of three legendary states: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Also examined is the once-thriving trade center of Timbuktu.

31 min

11: The Swahili Commercial World

Just as major trading states arose in West Africa along the southern shore of a “sea of sand,” so in East Africa there emerged a distinctive commercial culture on the shore of a real sea - the Indian Ocean. Between 1000 and 1500, the East African coast entered its own golden age. The Swahili world had arrived.

31 min

12: Great Zimbabwe and the Cities of the South

This lecture investigates a series of Later Iron Age sites in the southern African interior that were commercially linked with the Swahili ports in East Africa. Included are the remarkable stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the most extensive stone construction in Africa south of the Nile Valley.

31 min

13: The Atlantic Slave Trade - The Scope

The most profound connection between America and Africa is, without doubt, the forced migration of large numbers of African slaves for permanent settlement in the New World. This lecture examines West Africa's place in the immense Atlantic System that emerged in the three centuries following Columbus's voyage.

29 min

14: The Atlantic Slave Trade - The Impact

How did slave ships obtain their human cargo? Who gained and who lost? How many people were affected, including those who landed in the New World, those who died on the way, and those who perished while resisting capture? How did the Atlantic slave trade influence African populations in the long term?

32 min

15: South Africa - The Dutch Cape Colony

With the Atlantic slave trade picking up steam in the 1600s, the Dutch established a post at the Cape of Good Hope to reprovision ships going to and from their commercial interests in Asia. But Cape Town became something else: a beachhead for the gradual expansion of permanent European settlement.

32 min

16: South Africa - The Zulu Kingdom

In the decades around 1800, the southern Bantu world underwent dramatic change as centralized kingdoms replaced smaller chiefdoms. This process led to the modern Zulu kingdom under its great founder Shaka Zulu - later demonized as a bloodthirsty destroyer, but equally a builder and creator.

30 min

17: South Africa - The Frontier and Unification

In a migration reminiscent of the settlement of the American West - right down to the use of covered wagons - thousands of Dutch Afrikaners left the British Cape Colony and established themselves in the far interior. Unification of South Africa came after the British victory over Afrikaners in the Boer War.

30 min

18: South Africa - Diamonds and Gold

In 1867 huge diamond deposits were discovered in the interior of what would become South Africa, followed 20 years later by even more valuable gold deposits. Such enormous wealth set South Africa on the path to what it remains today: a first-world and third-world country wrapped into one.

30 min

19: Prelude to the Scramble for Africa

This lecture examines developments in the 1800s, between the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and the onset of full-blown European colonization. Some remarkable West African entrepreneurs arose to take advantage of the new market realities, including the palm oil merchant-king, Ja Ja of Opobo.

30 min

20: European Conquest and African Resistance

In 1884 representatives of several Western powers met in Berlin to discuss the ground rules in the scramble for Africa. The partition of the continent by European empires was motivated by the search for raw materials and markets, the missionary impulse, and pseudoscientific notions of racial superiority.

31 min

21: Colonial Africa - New Realities

By the early 1900s, most of Africa was under European colonial rule. This lecture looks at the characteristics shared by the colonies. All were involved in economic exploitation, infrastructure improvements, and authoritarian rule aided by local leaders. Furthermore, all professed a civilizing mission.

30 min

22: Colonial Africa - Comparisons and Change

Commonalities aside, the experiences of Africans under colonialism were hardly identical. The biggest difference depended on a simple question: How many European white settlers intended to stay? This affected African citizens in countless ways but most directly in whether they retained or lost their land.

31 min

23: The Lion Awakens - The Rise of Nationalism

There were two forms of protest against colonial rule: One sought to reestablish the independence that Africans had previously enjoyed; the other looked forward to a new Africa, different from both the precolonial and colonial models. The two types overlapped and coexisted for many Africans.

30 min

24: The Peaceful Paths to Independence

The decolonization of most of Africa, like its colonization, occurred rapidly. In 1950 almost no one would have predicted that within roughly a decade, the majority of African countries would celebrate independence. African nationalists were elated to gain power. But how would they use it?

30 min

25: The Congo - Promise and Pain

The tragedy of the Congo throws into sharp relief the processes of conquest, colonization, and decolonization. Belgian King Leopold brutally exploited the country as his personal possession. After independence, the Congo fell under the iron hand of Mobutu Sese Seko for 32 years. Today the country wallows in civil war.

30 min

26: Segregation to Apartheid in South Africa

As the sun began to set on European colonial rule in much of Africa and on America's own version of segregation, South Africa moved in the opposite direction. When the Afrikaner National Party came to power in 1948, it took several bold steps to entrench and intensify white supremacy forever - or so it was hoped.

31 min

27: The Armed Struggles for Independence

In countries where white settlers had something substantial to defend, they were prepared to fight for it. That in turn impelled African nationalists to take up arms themselves, notably in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Angola, and Mozambique. The scars from these conflicts have been slow to heal.

31 min

28: The First Taste of Freedom

While wars of liberation ravaged the southern African settler states, most countries in the rest of Africa were enjoying the first years of independence. The visionary new leaders announced great plans for bringing the fruits of independence home to ordinary citizens, and in many cases, they delivered.

30 min

29: The Taste Turns Sour

The promise of postcolonial freedom soon began to falter. The new leaders presided over severely hampered economies, and many of the elite were quite happy to settle for enriching themselves. When popular anger threatened stability, rulers turned to one-party states, and armies turned to military coups.

30 min

30: The World Turns Down - The “Permanent Crisis”

The mid-1970s were a grim turning point for Africa, marked by international oil shocks and falling prices for exported African commodities. One response was to borrow ever more furiously - and Africa's debt crisis was born. By the 1980s in places like Zambia, development was a bitterly forgotten dream.

31 min

31: A New Dawn? The Democratic Revival

As the Soviet bloc collapsed, authoritarian regimes in many parts of Africa faced unprecedented challenges to permit free speech and to loosen the state's grip on economic life. In country after country, civilian rule replaced military regimes, and one-party states gave way to multiparty competition.

31 min

32: The South African Miracle

South Africa's democratic breakthrough rivals that of the former Soviet bloc states of Eastern Europe. This lecture recounts the role played by the martyred Steve Biko, the Soweto schoolchildren's revolt of 1976, and growing international boycotts, followed by Nelson Mandela's miraculous negotiated transition to majority rule.

30 min

33: The Unthinkable - The Rwanda Genocide

In April 1994, the President of Rwanda was killed when a plane carrying him was shot down. Within hours began the systematic murder of 500,000 members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group. This lecture reviews Rwanda's precolonial and colonial history in an attempt to explain an event that remains, essentially, inexplicable.

30 min

34: The New Plague - HIV/AIDS in Africa

AIDS was first identified in the United States in the early 1980s but almost certainly originated decades earlier in Central Africa. Now a global threat, AIDS has had an incomparable impact on southern Africa, where in certain regions 30 percent of the population is infected with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS.

31 min

35: Zimbabwe - Background to Contemporary Crisis

This lecture explores the recent sharp decline in the fortunes of Zimbabwe, the jewel of Africa. In the past quarter-century, the rule of President Robert Mugabe has become increasingly corrupt and authoritarian, culminating in a land-grab of white-owned farms that caused the collapse of the agricultural economy.

30 min

36: Africa Found

The course concludes with a brief overview of some major themes: struggles with the environment, ethnic identity, statebuilding, and Africa's evolving relationship with the outside world. Professor Vickery then offers examples of contemporary Africans who give reason to see a brighter future for the continent.

31 min

Overview Course No. 8678

The story of Africa is the oldest and most event-filled chronicle of human activity on the planet. And in these 36 lectures, you'll explore this great historical drama, tracing the story of the Sub-Saharan region of the continent from the earliest evidence of human habitation to the latest challenges facing African nations in the 21st century.

By learning with these lectures, you'll finally be able to bust myths and correct potential misunderstandings about Africa. For example, in Africa, the word “tribe” is used in a neutral way to connote ethnic identity. Another example: Sub-Saharan Africa was not as isolated as is often suggested by references to the “lost” continent; in fact, an ancient Greek sailing guide from 2,000 years ago clearly shows that the East African coast was already connected commercially with areas to the north.

The primary focus of these eye-opening lectures is Sub-Saharan Africa, the region separated from North Africa by the harsh climate of the Sahara Desert and traditionally the part of the continent that has been the most mysterious and most misunderstood by Westerners. But by traveling on this exciting learning experience (one imbued with a pervasive spirit of charm and adventure), you'll finally be able to strengthen your understanding of this beautiful, multifaceted region.

About

Kenneth P. Vickery

I come to this subject with great affection, born of my own experiences there. I come to it with great enthusiasm because of the fascination that I think the raw materials of African history offer.

ALMA MATER

Yale University

INSTITUTION

North Carolina State University

Dr. Kenneth P. Vickery is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Advising in the History Department at North Carolina State. University, where he has taught for almost 30 years. He received his B.A. degree with Phi Beta Kappa honors at Duke University and went on to study sub-Saharan African history at Yale University, where he earned his Ph.D. During his tenure at NC State, he has been a visiting professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Meredith College. In 1993, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship and served as a Fulbright Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Economic History of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. Professor Vickery is also an acclaimed author. His book Black and White in Southern Zambia: The Tonga Plateau Economy and British Imperialism, 1890ñ1939 was a finalist for the Herskovits Prize, given annually by the African Studies Association for the outstanding book in African studies. He has published numerous articles and reviews in such publications as Comparative Studies in Society and History, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and American Historical Review . An award-winning instructor, Dr. Vickery was inducted into the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at North Carolina State in 1986. In 2005, he was named Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor, the university's highest teaching honor.