This comparison of the political and social systems of Europe and black Africa from antiquity to the formation of modern states demonstrates the black contribution to the development of Western civilization.

Donald Wehrs explores pioneering narrative representations of pre-colonial African history and society in texts by Casely Hayford, Alhaji Sir Abubaker Tafawa Balewa, Paul Hazoumé, D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, and Chinua Achebe. By highlighting the role of pre-colonial political economies and articulations of state power on colonial-era considerations of ethical and political issues, his book supplements recent work on the importance of indigenous contexts and discourses in situating colonial-era narratives.

The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.

In this collection of essays written from different critical perspectives, African playwrights demonstrate through their art that they are not only witnesses, but also consciences, of their societies.