A Brief Refresher on African History: For the Use of President Sarkozy, Adame Ba Konare, Catherine Clément, Elikia M'Bokolo

Beyond the strong reactions among Africans to Nicolas Sarkozy's speech in Dakar on July 26, 2007, his statements on the inertia of the African continent and France's non-responsibility for its current problems required a reasoned response, stripped of all emotional considerations. It was with the aim of enlightening President Sarkozy and, more generally, the wider public about the reality of African history that Adame Ba Konaré launched a notable appeal to the community of historians in September 2007.
This work is the result of that mobilization: twenty-five contributions from internationally renowned specialists and younger researchers, both African and European, each rigorously addressing a part of the continent's rich, complex, and too often overlooked history. The book's chronological and thematic structure refutes, point by point, clichés inherited from colonial ethnology and changes the perception of Africa. This response is not a matter of Africans whose dignity has been wounded, but an undertaking by historians, from both the North and the South, concerned with re-establishing the truth of facts against all attempts at manipulation.