(in Polish) Introduction to East African History (K1)

elective courses
general courses

Good English, including comprehension and some conversational skills.

The lecture concerns the area of present-day Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. The lecturer focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries history. The period before 1800 will be addressed as long as it is prerequisite to understanding more recent processes and events. The lecture will cover politics, economy, society, culture as well as contacts between East Africa and the outside world. The lectures on pre-colonial history (until 1888) will mostly deal with transformation of the polities and economies of the region, large-scale migrations, long-distance caravan trade, and the international context of the political developments. Special attention will be paid to the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the ways the polity shaped the societies of the interior. The resistance against and the adjustment to the colonial order, as well as modernisation of the African life and its consequences will be the central issues under scrutiny during the lectures covering the period 1888-1960.

The lecture concerns the area of present-day Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. The lecturer focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries history. The period before 1800 will be addressed as long as it is prerequisite to understanding more recent processes and events. The lecture will cover politics, economy, society, culture as well as contacts between East Africa and the outside world. The lectures on pre-colonial history (until 1888) will mostly deal with transformation of the polities and economies of the region, large-scale migrations, long-distance caravan trade, and the international context of the political developments. Special attention will be paid to the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the ways the polity shaped the societies of the interior. The resistance against and the adjustment to the colonial order, as well as modernisation of the African life and its consequences will be the central issues under scrutiny during the lectures covering the period 1888-1960. While the region in question will be treated as totality, the independent states that emerged after 1960 will be addressed separately due to the fact that they chose different paths of development and coped with different problems.

See the syllabus

Sudents know the ethnic composition of East Africa, the sources and main features of the Swahili and Interlacustrine civilizations, the main forms of political and social life of East African peoples, the main characteristics of the Portuguese occupation, the main characteristics of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, specific features of East African slavery, the mechanism of British imperial control over East Africa before the Scramble for Africa, the mechanisms and practices of Eats African caravan trade,

Students are able to compare the dynamics of political development of Buganda and Rwanda, to characterize the background for the colonial conquest of East Africa, to characterize the mechnisms of colonial control in Kenya, Tanganyika, Kenya and Rwanda, to characterize the particular features of independent East African states.

Open discussion over short texts, final test