SOAS President Zeinab Badawi to publish new book on African history

SOAS President, Zeinab Badawi, will publish a new book on African history in 2024.  

“An African History of Africa” will be released in spring 2024 and will recount African history from African historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers who Zeinab has encountered and interviewed.  

Zeinab, whose work includes interviewing some of the world’s most notable personalities and politicians on the BBC’s "Hardtalk" show and hosting "Global Questions" on BBC World TV and the BBC News Channel, said:  

“Although I was born under the African sun in Sudan, I had always struggled to find an accessible and comprehensive history of Africa that brought to life the key figures and moments in the amazing African story. 

“My book is an Africans’ history of Africa that foregrounds how the people of the continent themselves see and interpret their history, and that showcases the brilliant African academics whose painstaking historic research has rarely gained the attention it deserves. But this is a book for everyone and anyone who wants to learn about Africa’s rich and engrossing narratives. For there is nobody on earth today who cannot say that they originally came out of Africa – this is a history for all of us.” 

Publisher, WH Allen describes the book as “a sweeping guide through history, and also an urgent, conversation-starting book about why this history has been side-lined and neglected for so long." 

Listen to Zeinab discuss the book below.