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Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and the world's eighth largest oil producer, but its success has been undermined in recent decades by ethnic and religious conflict, political instability, rampant official corruption and an ailing economy. Toyin Falola, a leading historian intimately acquainted with the region, and Matthew Heaton, who has worked extensively on African science and culture, combine their expertise to explain the context to Nigeria's recent troubles through an exploration of its pre-colonial and colonial past, and its journey from independence to statehood. By examining key themes such as colonialism, religion, slavery, nationalism and the economy, the authors show how Nigeria's history has been swayed by the vicissitudes of the world around it, and how Nigerians have adapted to meet these challenges. This book offers a unique portrayal of a resilient people living in a country with immense, but unrealized, potential. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Pertinent
The author has added to my body of knowledge on the history of Nigeria in a factual way. Very simple and easy to read, this book will certainly help anyone with gaps in their memory of how it was in Nigeria from precolonial times.

Reads like a textbook
Book is well written for the most part, but often jumps back and forth through time as opposed to sticking to events in each period being discussed. Could have done more in terms of going into the history and culture of each group, or atleast the major ones. There are a lot of cultural references that could have been included but were not. Overall, it is a good book for your collection of Nigerian literary works.

Impressive
Any attempt to write a history book on africa's largest country is always going to be a major undertaken. In the history of Nigeria, Toyin Falola serves us a general sweep of nigeria's storied history beginning from the precolonial times right up to the dawn of the new millenium just as the country was making its second experiment with democracy.
I was looking for a history book that would help me fill the gaps in my knowledge and help me answer certain questions so i decided to purchase this book and I came through satisfied with the time and money invested in this material.
At 256 pages, I wasnt expecting to get the depth and detail that i may have hoped for especially when i read the chapters that had to do with the military coups, specifically the overthrow of murtala mohammed's regime. What you get here is a general overview. For more detail and depth you should look to other sources. But this book misses out on nothing from a general standpoint.
I read this book in just 2 days, i found it easy to read through and void of the teduim which is generally a trait of most history books.
I'm hoping the author comes out with another volume covering the first decade of the new millenuim.

Very thorough!!
This is an extremely thorough book on Nigeria. It will provide almost any information you need or want to know. Well done!

A History of Nigeria
The first book i've read that gives detailed insight into the area called Nigeria 10,000 BC. Walks you through history in a beautiful narrative, detailing events of each era up to the colonial period and post independence. It opened my eyes to the issues that have plagued Nigeria as a country politically, why we are where we are, and what the real issues were.

A must read for every Nigerian and friend of Nigeria. ... Read more

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Readable, rich with privileged information
Very readable account. This sympathetic book, My Nigeria: Five Decades of Independence is in sharp contrast in tone from the more-or-less equally revealing but ominous book on the Nigerian condition by Karl Maier a few years ago. The delivery of My Nigeria is a compassionate one from a competent literary hand. Where Maier's otherwise well-written work is judgmental in his title and theme with a uniformly tragic tone apparently deduced from the din of the hectically paced nation before him, Peter Cunliffe-Jones's My Nigeria makes a correspondingly mordant case about the country, but on balance in a sympathetic but firm and insightful way.
The author, a journalist with the news agency, Agence France Presse seems to adroitly weave two strands of narrative into thesupple tapestry that is the Nigeria social fabric. This he does in crisp and yet flowery cadences that make the book hard to put down. His apparent first goal seems an innately personal journey, to give something back to the country, and the continent, that lost so much from the encounter with their erstwhile colonizing masters - a pillage in which he deftly shows his forebears as foot-soldiers to different degree. The second strand in the account is the downright journalistic grunt of his sheer hard work to document, report and graphically reveal the state of the previously promising fledgling nation(reflected in his own affectionate title: My Nigeria), and to narrate the cesspool corruption and incompetence have conspired to make it today.
His journalist pedigree is evident in his handle of the history of the peoples. The scope covers the timeline of the region from its ancient primitive pre-dawn of recorded history, through the coalescing of the wanderinghunter-gatherers into various nation-building polities, to the advent of Europeans and the attendant rupture in the cultural fabric and the natural political evolution of the various peoples - an existential process that eventually saw the British empire presiding over the upshot, with its amalgamation of remarkably contrasting peoples into one fledgling nation-state, which it , in short order handed over to unprepared hands with no prior try of the democratic process they are to go by. As the saying goes, the rest is history: the unfolding of which Cunliffe-Jones has deployed the power of his journalistic pen on the fluid and thrilling pages of the book, showing the dynamics that shapes the intractable problems that has dogged the country from its official inception 50 years ago: tribal identity, crude oil, incompetence and corruption, and a citizenry passive to the incompetence of its leaders.
Giving the account a unique perspective is no doubt the author's access to privileged information as much as the grunt of his journalist prowess in research. From the insight of the diaries of his grandfather, Hugo Marshall, who was the first lieutenant-governor of the most important region at the dawn of the country, we are treated with revealing private thoughts of this stalwart of colonial power of the time. We also glean a perspective afforded by ties to an earlier forebear, Edward Burns, an actual foot-soldier in the gun-to-the head vigilante campaignthat bequeathed title and authority of African landsin the "treaties" so obtained to one of the European powers.
Hence, we are treated with a graphic view of the drama of the hectic, uneasy grafting of the south and north territories of the Niger area, despite their rather markedly disparate cultures and traditions that had hitherto evolved distinctly. With not much time for subsequent nation-building before historical factors forced the hands of the British empire to fledge its new progeny to be on its own. A gripping read indeed.
The realism of the prose is enlivened with numerous informal and formal interviews of ordinary folks as well as powerful ones. Particulaly riveting is how he deftly illustrates the opportunism of many ersatz Nigerian leaders, the various kick-back nouveau-riche governors and the crude-oil millionaires who are actual unlikely players in various self-enrichment schemes at the expense of the electorates.
In all, rather than kill his subject with kindness though, or to come to rash conclusion about the state of the nascent nation, he deftly balances the account by graphically delivering the story with a show-but- not-tell method, making the problems and their origin manifest for the reader discernment. The inadequacy of the leadership as well as the passivity of the citizenry is made more palpable when stood in comparison to Indonesia, a country with which Nigeria share the same multicultural diversity, colonial experience and squalor 50 years ago. While the former has since made good on various measures, the latter shrivels in an alarming way. Some indictment.
However, on the apparent original motivation for some kind of self-atonement or palliative restitution by a benevolent descendant of those pivotal men in the history visited upon Africa, the author deserves our compliment, above all for his steadfastness in putting the book together in spite of near-death experiences in the process, from armed robbers , malaria fever among other social pathologies of Nigeria.
The handy bibliography at the of the book, should be informative to many Nigerians about what they otherwise do not know about their own national history, so much so that some may hopefully find in it a springboard for embarking on more serious and dispassionate study about how the country got this way. The quaint and helpful photos included are worthy -- in some cases, more than the many words in the book they aptly compliment, in shedding the light on the colonial ambiance of the era. Although, it would have been more helpful for the author to throw in a map or two, to help those not familiar with that part of the world have a better grasp.
As for the atonement thing, it is doubtful if the magnanimity of his journalist friend who casually brushed off the author's reasoned inherited remorse (by unilaterally declaring the responsibility being squarely Nigerians' now) really means much. The contrast in their perspectives on this third arrival itself perhaps mirrors their epistemologies on the gravity of history. And perhaps the overall judgment for the work of this traveler of conscience is best left to posterity and to the author's conscience.
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A rich history
Nigeria is a federation of states. In its centre is Plateau, which is a mini-Nigeria in its diverse ethnic groups, with several languages and religions. Yet the history of the various groups and their experiences, prior, during and after colonial rule, was rarely systematically studied.

Isichei tries to redress this by gathering essays from many scholars of Nigerian history. Appropriately, most are from Nigeria. Reading the essays left me struck with how the intricate and rich history of the peoples was on a par with, say, a history of Europe in the Middle Ages. But Plateau has a complicated tapestry that is little known or appreciated outside the country.

The essays also hint at various tensions has have be-devilled Nigeria since independence. Relations between the Hausa and other groups has sometimes been troubled. A statement that has remained true to this day. ... Read more

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In the post-colonial era, historians have begun to understand the middlebelt of Nigeria as the cradle of several Nigerian groups. Studying thearea has become central to the search for a proper identity of the diversepeoples of central Nigeria, and for an understanding of African historygenerally. This pioneering effort puts together, in one volume, researchby some thirty academics on a region taking in the states of Kwara, Kogi,Plateau Nassarawa, Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Bauchi, Taraba, Adamawa and theFederal Capital Territory. The volume is organised thematically aroundsubjects about the origins of the region, its archaeology and pre-historyand migration and settler patterns. Further essays cover geography andenvironment; the origins and growth of political organisations, andchange; oral tradition, kingships and the development of centralisedauthorities; the economy - cloth manufacturing/textiles and agriculture;economic relations between groups, and inter-group relations under thecolonials; and experiences of exploitation and resistance. ... Read more

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Filling a gap, this study presents a comprehensive history of Nigeria's diverse peoples. The first two chapters provide a geographical and archaeological background. The main body of the work is divided into three sections: Nigeria Before 1800; Nigeria in the 19th century: and Nigeria in the 20th century. Contributors cover a multitude of different issues andregions such as the Benin Kingdom, the trans-atlantic slave trade, nationalist movements, and Borno in the 19th century. ... Read more

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Historians of colonial Africa have largely regarded the decade of the Great Depression as a period of intense exploitation and colonial inactivity. In Colonial Meltdown, Moses E. Ochonu challenges this conventional interpretation by mapping the determined, at times violent, yet instructive responses of Northern Nigeria's chiefs, farmers, laborers, artisans, women, traders, and embryonic elites to the British colonial mismanagement of the Great Depression. Colonial Meltdown explores the unraveling of British colonial power at a moment of global economic crisis.

Ochonu shows that the economic downturn made colonial exploitation all but impossible and that this dearth of profits and surpluses frustrated the colonial administration which then authorized a brutal regime of grassroots exactions and invasive intrusions. The outcomes were as harsh for Northern Nigerians as those of colonial exploitation in boom years.

Northern Nigerians confronted colonial economic recovery measures and their agents with a variety of strategies.ColonialMeltdownanalyzes how farmers, women, laborers, laid-off tin miners, and Northern Nigeria's emergent elite challenged and rebelled against colonial economic recovery schemes with evasive trickery, defiance, strategic acts of revenge, and criminal self-help and, in the process, exposed the weak underbelly of the colonial system.

Combined with the economic and political paralysis of colonial bureaucrats in the face of crisis, these African responses underlined the fundamental weakness of the colonial state, the brittleness of its economic mission, and the limits of colonial coercion and violence. This atmosphere of colonial collapse emboldened critics of colonial policies who went on to craft the rhetorical terms on which the anticolonial struggle of the post-World War II period was fought out.

In the current climate of global economic anxieties, Ochonu's analysis will enrich discussions on the transnational ramifications of economic downturns. It will also challenge the pervasive narrative of imperial economic success. ... Read more

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This work documents the history of change during the colonial period in the Abakaliki division and town of south-eastern Igbo Nigeria over four main historical periods: pre- British Abakaliki; the beginnings of colonialism from the early twentieth century until the 1920s; the 1920s until the 2nd World War; and the post-war period through to independence in 1960. Within the context of rapid urbanisation and urban sprawl in Africa, the study focuses on one Nigerian town and its rural environs. It is the story of successful rural farmers and of an emerging town in their midst; and a study of ethnic interrelationships, integration and conflict between the town and the rural areas. It is a study in colonial history within the framework of British control and conquest; and also a story of African responses to colonialism: resistance, accommodation and innovation. The author characterises his work as more descriptive than theoretical, and as having regard for both anthropological and historical approaches and the positive and negative aspects of colonialism, without being overtly ideological. ... Read more

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The second half of the twentieth century saw the publication of massive amounts of literature on Nigeria by Nigerian and non-Nigerian historians. This volume reflects on that literature, focusing on those works by Nigerians in the context of the rise and decline of African nationalist historiography. Given the diminishing share in the global output of literature on Africa by African historians, it has become crucial to reintroduce Africans into historical writing about Africa. As the authors attempt here to rescue older voices, they also rehabilitate a stale historiography by revisiting the issues, ideas, and moments that produced it. This revivalism also challenges Nigerian historians of the twenty-first century to study the nation in new ways, to comprehend its modernity, and to frame a new set of questions on Nigeria's future and globalization. In spite of current problems in Nigeria and its universities, that historical scholarship on Nigeria (and by extension, Africa) has come of age is indisputable. From a country that struggled for Western academic recognition in the 1950s to one that by the 1980s had emerged as one of the most studied countries in Africa, Nigeria is not only one of the early birthplaces of modern African history, but has also produced members of the first generation of African historians whose contributions to the development and expansion of modern African history is undeniable. Like their counterparts working on other parts of the world, these scholars have been sensitive to the need to explore virtually all aspects of Nigerian history. The book highlights the careers of some of Nigeria's notable historians of the first and second generation. ... Read more

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Violence in Nigeria is the most comprehensive study of religious violence and aggression in Nigeria, notably its causes, consequences, and the options for conflict resolution. After an analysis of the links between religion and politics, the book elaborates on all the major cases of violence in the 1980s and 90s, including the Maitatsine, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, and Katsina riots. Zones of religious tensions are identified, as well as general characteristics of violence in Nigeria; and issues in inter and intra-religious relations, relious organizations, and the states, and the main actors in the conflicts are explored in great detail. A product of extensive primary research, Violence in Nigeria makes a contribution to contemporary social and political history that no previous study has attempted, and it is written to appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike. ... Read more

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Great Book
This book is very enlightening on the subject of Violence in Nigeria.In particular, I like the dicussion contrasting the Muslim and Christian religion.Good account of reasons for violence and political figures that play important roles in deciding political stability in Nigeria. ... Read more

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The process of cultural transfer in Northern Nigeria was historically thought to have been dictated by European colonial domination. In fact, Western missionaries may not have been able to guide African Christians toward mastery of the secular world when they themselves lacked the worldliness to do so. In this penetrating study, Andrew E. Barnes argues that competition among colonizing forces impelled British colonial administrators and Christian missionaries alike to offer Africans those aspects of Western civilization Africans themselves specifically wanted: schools that provided greater access to Western intellectual skills. In Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in Colonial Northern Nigeria, Barnes demonstrates effectively that Europeans were successful in transferring to local peoples the cultural values they hoped to foster only because Africans and Europeans reached consensus about the nature and character of the Western civilization to be shared. Ultimately, this study asserts, Africans had greater control over the introduction of Western civilization to the region than traditionally thought. ... Read more

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By the second decade of the twentieth century in Abeokuta, a Yoruba town in southwestern Nigeria, most dyers were producing adire cloth, which featured a variety of patterns created by resist dyeing with indigo onto a primarily European manufactured cloth. The author highlights the dynamic way in which these women engaged with the colonial economy, taking full advantage of its infrastructure and credit, as well as the new technologies and the availability of imported European cloth. Reveals how the women dyers constantly adapted to changes in the market, technology, political and economic conditions, consumer tastes and competition from other imported goods so that the industry not only survived but thrived as the town of Abeokuta was increasingly incorporated into the international economy.North America: Heinemann ... Read more

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The basic idea in this book is that Nigerian historians, indeed historians of Africa, have from the birth of the new African historiography seen and pursued historical studies and historical writing as part of the larger effort to create, consolidate and run modern and modernizing states in Africa. It is this larger process that Professor Adiele Afigbo refers to as statecraft.Afigbo makes the point that strictly speaking this role is not a new one in Africa. It is a revival and continuation of a process and profession which has been part of the African way of life as seen in “the older versions of history,” which we refer to today as mythys and legends, and which were constructed to shore up the states of old Africa and to create wide enough political space for the citizens of each state and society.“… The history of Africanization of knowledge cannot be written without placing Professor Afigbo at the center stage of the process.”—Adebayo Oyebade, Tennessee State UniversityFrom Igbo to African historiography, theoretical and empirical consideration and broadening the scope of African history provide the potent emotional drive of Afigbo’s work. He expands the canon of historical thinking and reinvigorates oral tradition as a sophisticated tool in the analysis and defense of African history.”—Chima J. Korieh, Rowan College ... Read more

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First published in 1921, and cited on the Africa's Best 100 Books List, this is a standard work on the history of theYorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate. The first part of the book discusses the people, theircountry and language, religion, government, land law, manners and customs. The second part is divided into four periods, dealing first with mytheological kings and deified heroes; with the growth, prosperity and oppression of the Yoruba people; the time of revolutionary wars and disruption; and, finally, the arrest of disintegration, inter-tribal wars, and the coming of the British. There are two appendices, on dealing with treaties and agreements, the other giving tables of Yoruba kings, rulers, and chiefs. The book also includes an index and map of the Yoruba country. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great service! Please keep it up going!
The comment that came with the book's advert was: NEW. Thus, I was and still exceedingly happy that the book (The History of the Yorubas) you sent to me via UPS is indeed NEW. Secondly, I am very surprised that this book (The History of the Yoruba) was shipped to me immediately, which made me get itwithin three to four days! Thank you very much. I really enjoy your customer service! Please keep it up going.

A classic work
The author of this classic work is not to be confused with Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the English essayist, poet, and lexicographer usually known as "Dr Johnson".This Samuel Johnson (1846-1901) was an Anglican vicar of African descent.He was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but spent his adult life in Nigeria. His peace-efforts in the 1870s contributed to the eventual end of the Yoruba wars in 1886.

In 1880 Samuel Johnson became a deacon and was ordained a vicar in 1888.Claiming Yoruba ancestry, he was concerned that his people were losing their own history and completed the original manuscript of his history of the Yoruba people from his notes in 1897.Whether by accident or design, this completed manuscript was sadly lost.However, after his death, his brother, Dr Obadiah Johnson, produced this work from his notes.It was at last published in 1921.Unfortunately, Obadiah died in 1920 so neither he nor Samuel saw the finished product.

It remains a key resource for the understanding of Yoruba history.

Great Book
There are considerably information about Yoruba's History and Religion.
If you are a priest or worshipper of Orixa , you need to buy this book.

Monumentof the Age to come!
This book is one of the foundation materials that informs the depth of the Omoluabi Matrix. Inbetween the pages of this volume we can trace the concept of Omoluabi civilzation which is the single factor responsible for the continued survival and advancement of our race. Ignoring the obvious Oyo bias of the author this resource material alongside others, details the incontrovertible evidence of an ancient African civilization on which the principles of democracy could rest. It details the cultural concepts that helped to overcome the colonial beast and gives a name to terrorism in ancient times. The only draw back is that the book did not investigate the insidious root of the word "Yoruba" - an abusive 18th century coinage of ancient terrorists. The original Olukumi tag would have furthered the cause of our national reawakening.

Yoruba History
I remember reading this book when I was in secondary school over 25 years ago and I can still recall how amazed I was to discover that we Yorubas had organized govermental inititutions.I found out why we as a people are so defragmented, the origin of the Yoruba people and different tribes, the power and might of various tribal empires.I don't think there is another book that has this amount of detail regarding the Yoruba people.Now I need a copy for my library and is now difficult to get hold of. ... Read more

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This text explores the rivalry that existed between Protestant and Catholic missionaries in Nigeria. Education was an essential part of their "civilizing" mission, because it was a way of winning converts, training Nigerian workers and catechists, and creating a Nigerian middle class. However, the rapid expansion of education, particularly in Southern Nigeria, was actually the accidental outcome of missionary rivalry rather than the result of an altruistic policy to provide expanded educational opportunities for the Nigerian populace. ... Read more

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Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has undergone tremendous change shaped by political instability, rapid population growth, and economic turbulence. The Historical Dictionary of Nigeria introduces Nigeria's rich and complex history. Readers will find a wealth of information on important contemporary issues like AIDS, human rights, petroleum, and faith-based conflict. ... Read more