Dictionary of African Biography

Editor-in-chief: Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Extensive: over 2,100 articles on Africans from prehistory to the present and from all regions and countries of Africa
Scholarly: articles written by experts in the field of African history

Dictionary of African Biography

Editor-in-chief: Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Description

In the spirit of The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, American National Biography, and African American National Biography--all three published by Oxford University Press--Dictionary of African Biography is a major biographical dictionary covering the lives and legacies of notable African men and women from all eras and walks of life. This groundbreaking resource tells the full story of the African continent through the lives of its people.

The rich history of the African people has been unduly neglected in the scholarly literature, and reliable reference material is in short supply. This trend has begun to change, however, and in recent years many new historical discoveries have been made. Much of this research is designed as a corrective to the long tradition of inadequate treatment by scholars. Although scholarship on Africa is flourishing, very little of this research has yet filtered down into accessible reference works; well designed reference material is essential to promote further scholarly inquiry, learning, and education, and to satisfy increasing interest among nonspecialist audiences.

Although there have been some isolated instances of successful biography of Africans, there is no single resource that provides comprehensive coverage. Older reference works focus unevenly on the colonial period, European adventurers, and Egyptian dynasties. There is very little attention given to the full range of African lives, and rarely is the continent treated as a whole. As a result our picture of Africa's history and its people is incomplete. A comprehensive biographical dictionary will greatly increase our understanding of the African continent and have a transformative effect on education and research.

As the most wide-reaching reference project on Africa to date, DAB will be a means of codifying the explosion of new research. Entries will be written by contributing scholars from African studies departments the world over. Each entry has been reviewed by the editorial board to ensure only reliable, high-quality material is published.

DAB contains nearly 2 million words in nearly 2,100 entries, each with bibliography, ranging from 750 to 2,000 words. It will have a comprehensive index. It comprises six volumes and is published in a hardcover edition for specialists and libraries.

Library Journal Best Reference 2011

Dictionary of African Biography

Editor-in-chief: Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Dictionary of African Biography

Editor-in-chief: Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Author Information

Emmanuel Akyeampong is a Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Contributors:

There are over 500 contributors to DAB. Notable contributors include: Roger Allen (University of Pennsylvania); Molefi Kete Asante (Temple University); Efraim Barak (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel); David C. Conrad (State University of New York, Emeritus); Cyril Daddieh (Miami University of Ohio); Elizabeth Macharia-Mokobi (University of Botswana); Giacomo Macola (University of Kent, England); Mary Moran (Colgate University); Godfrey Muriuki (University of Nairobi, Kenya); Jean Paul Revez (Université du Québec, Montréal); David Robinson (Michigan State University); Duane W. Roller (Ohio State University); Chris Saunders (Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town); Bairu Taflu (University of Hamburg, Germany); Joyce Tyldesley (University of Manchester); Judith Van Allen (Institute for African Development, Cornell University); A. K. Vinogradov (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)

The executive editor is Steven J. Niven (W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University)

The subject-area editors are: Stanley M. Burstein (California State University, Los Angeles, Emeritus); Chouki El Hamel (Arizona State University); Allen Fromherz (Georgia State University); Israel Gershoni (Tel Aviv University); Lidwien Kapteijns (Wellesley College); Ray Kea (University of California, Riverside); Christopher Lee; Paul Lovejoy (York University, Toronto); Ghislaine Lydon (University of California, Los Angeles); Jonathan Miran (Western Washington University); Evan Mwangi (Northwestern University); Jeremy Rich (Middle Tennessee State University); Kathleen Sheldon (University of California, Los Angeles); Jay Spaulding (Kean University); Thomas Spear (University of Wisconsin)

Dictionary of African Biography

Editor-in-chief: Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Reviews and Awards

"it is perhaps impossible to capture the full diversity of Africa - a continent of one billion people, and the most continuous site of the evolution of the human species on our planet - in 2000 biographies. But the DAB provides arguably the most thorough sampling to date of the astonishing richness and variety of African lives over the past 5000 years." --The Root

"...the DAB is a major achievement. The DAB is thorough and well edited, and the material is easy to access, making this set worthy of inclusion in all public or university libraries" --Booklist, starred review

"The combination of scholarly entries and breadth of coverage makes this dictionary a distinctive resource for African biography...Summing Up: Highly recommended." --CHOICE

"Students of African history in high school and beyond will find this work invaluable for its covearge of precolonial African personalities. It is a landmark resource that will be greatly appreciated by all enthusiasts of African history and culture." --Library Journal

"They and their contributors have produced a six-volume set that supplies 2,126 well-written and thoroughly-researched biographies. And to their credit, these collective efforts exceed all other previous attempts at creating a biographical reference focused on the entire continent of Africa... a key reference work for academic libraries supporting African studies programs, as well as a valuable addition to nay biographical reference collection" -- Against the Grain