Introduction

African Urban Spaces: History and Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID20041591
AuthorsC Coquery-Vidrovitch (0000-0002-0435-0214, corresponding author)
Year2005
Pagesxv-xl
Publication date2005-12-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAfrican Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBoydell and Brewer (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1515/9781580466370-002
OpenAlexW4393273526
ISBN9781580466370
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited11

An historical fact is sometimes forgotten: African urban history is a very old and complex affair. Cities existed in Africa in ancient archaeological times and during the age of medieval Islam. The Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean trading systems spurred urban development, as did autochthonous processes. Early on, urbanization was made possible, as elsewhere, by the agricultural so-called neolithic revolution, which allowed noncultivating urbanites-men of power, priests, craftsmen, and merchants-to be fed by their rural partners. 1 Another common point is that, from these varied and sometimes contrasted urban realities, a new urban revolution occurred from the very beginning of the nineteenth century. It resulted from an early (precolonial), even if often mediated, diffusion of European Industrial Revolution impulse into a westernized "modernity"; African modern cities were cities that politically and/or economically accepted or later were forced to adapt (as, in Yorubaland, Abeokuta or Ibadan). From that moment onward and still more than beforehand, cities proved to be main political and cultural focuses. Urban cultural processes probably are the most difficult to study, while they certainly were among the most decisive tools for change

Geography · Political science · Urban culture · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History

Tools

Open DOILibgenOpen Access