The African Experience: From "Lucy" to Mandela

An award-winning and Yale-trained historian reveals Africa in all its complexity, grandeur, tragedy, and resilience so you can understand the events in present-day Africa through their deep historical context.

• By This Professor
• 01: Finding the "Lost Continent"
• 02: Africa's Many Natural Environments
• 03: A Virtual Tour of the Great Land
• 04: The Cradle of Humankind
• 05: Crops, Cattle, Iron - Taming a Continent
• 06: Kinship and Community - Societies Take Shape
• 07: Like Nothing Else - The Ancient Nile Valley
• 08: Soul and Spirit - Religion in Africa
• 09: Ethiopia - Outpost of Christianity
• 10: West Africa's Golden Age
• 11: The Swahili Commercial World
• 12: Great Zimbabwe and the Cities of the South
• 13: The Atlantic Slave Trade - The Scope
• 14: The Atlantic Slave Trade - The Impact
• 15: South Africa - The Dutch Cape Colony
• 16: South Africa - The Zulu Kingdom
• 17: South Africa - The Frontier and Unification
• 18: South Africa - Diamonds and Gold
• 19: Prelude to the Scramble for Africa
• 20: European Conquest and African Resistance
• 21: Colonial Africa - New Realities
• 22: Colonial Africa - Comparisons and Change
• 23: The Lion Awakens - The Rise of Nationalism
• 24: The Peaceful Paths to Independence
• 25: The Congo - Promise and Pain
• 26: Segregation to Apartheid in South Africa
• 27: The Armed Struggles for Independence
• 28: The First Taste of Freedom
• 29: The Taste Turns Sour
• 30: The World Turns Down - The "Permanent Crisis"
• 31: A New Dawn? The Democratic Revival
• 32: The South African Miracle
• 33: The Unthinkable - The Rwanda Genocide
• 34: The New Plague - HIV/AIDS in Africa
• 35: Zimbabwe - Background to Contemporary Crisis
• 36: Africa Found