It is deliberate that this volume has drawn most of its examples from those historians associated with the University of Ibadan. Their “rise and fall” tend to approximate the growth and decline of academic history in Nigeria. In the first of the two retrospective chapters to close this book, we bring out the core elements of this historiography, locating it within the context of writing about Africa in general and of the encounter with the West that “determines” the content, orientation, and tone of most of the work of historians examined in this volume. Whether in the case of Ajayi, who enthrones the relevance of tradition, or of Awe, who challenges the imposition of Western feminist theories on gender studies in Africa, we find the persistent theme of countering Western discourse in most of nationalist historiography.

The context for writing about Africa was set as far back as the fifteenth century. As the century came to its close, Europeans began to ensure permanent contacts with Africa beyond the Mediterranean. A century later, the primary motivation behind the contacts had become the transatlantic slave trade. This trade was abolished in the nineteenth century, replaced by the trade in the continent's raw materials. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, commercial relations gave way to direct territorial control by aggressive European powers as Africa was partitioned. New countries emerged, under colonial control for most of the first half of the twentieth century.