Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:23:50.139Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

J. F. Ade Ajayi and the New Historiography in West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Robert A. Hess
Robert A. Hess*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Even the casual reader of African history is struck by the fact that significant shifts in focus and approach have occurred during the past decade. As is presently the common trend in African historiography, contemporary writers focus more upon the role of Africans-their institutions, their attitudes, and their internal forces--than upon the activities of Europeans in Africa. This has become possible because the African past has been more adequately researched and because well-trained African scholars are now writing. The new men of African historiography are devoted to the task of unveiling the past of their own people and are equipped by training and by cultural continuity with their ancestors to use the special tools necessary to reconstruct the past.

One important group of African historians who have emerged as prominent writers and lecturers clusters around the new universities. At Ibadan University Dr. Kenneth Onwuka Dike, formerly Vice Chancellor of the University; Dr. Joseph C. Anene; and Dr. E. A. Ayendele have all made important contributions to Nigeria's histpry. Dr. Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi, professor of history at Ibadan University, is a figure in this group whose work deserves special attention for a variety of reasons.

Not least among such reasons is that he has followed his passion for historical inquiry with energy and thoroughness. By both his vigorous leadership among historians of his university and within the Historical Society of Nigeria and by his publication of the results of his historical research, he has made substantial contributions to the remarkable growth of our knowledge of Nigeria's past.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , September 1971 , pp. 273 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES CITED

Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “Henry Venn and the Policy of Development.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. I, No. 4 (1959).Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “The British Occupation of Lagos, 1851-61: A Critical Review.” Nigeria Magazine, No. 69 (August 1961a), 63–65.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “Nineteenth Century Origins of Nigerian Nationalism.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, II, 2 (1961b), 196–210.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “The Place of African History and Culture in the Process of Nation Building in Africa South of the Sahara.” Journal of Negro Education, XXX, 3 (Summer 1961c), 206–213.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elites. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “Samuel Ajayi Crowther of Oyo.” In Curtin, Philip D., ed. Africa Remembered. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade. “Review of African Churches Among the Yoruba, 1888-1922 by J. B. Webster.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, III, 3 (n.d.), 582.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Ispie, Ian, eds. A Thousand Years of West African History. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press and Nelson, 1965.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Smith, Robert S.. Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Anonymous. “Review of Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elite by J. F. Ade Ajayi.” Choice, Vol. III (May 1966).Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. “Review of Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century by J. F. Ade Ajayi and Robert S. Smith.” American Historical Review, LXX (July 1965), 1215.Google Scholar
Ferguson, John. “The New Elite.” Review of J. F. A. Ajayi's Christian Missions in Nigeria. International Review of Missions, LV, 218 (April 1966), 242.Google Scholar
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Social Scientists Specializing in African Studies. No. 49. Paris: UNESCO, 1963.Google Scholar