Originally published on May 12, 2025 (Episode 407)
Introduction
The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the “scramble for Africa,” when European powers imposed colonial regimes upon nearly the entire continent. Yet the decades preceding that imperial feeding frenzy were times of revolutionary ferment and change, both political and economic.
In his new book The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 2025), Richard Reid examines those changes by focusing on a stretch of road in Tanzania, one of the most active commercial highways of its time, weaving the larger African and European context around characters and events on that road.
About the Guest
Richard Reid is Professor of African History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Cross College. His books include Shallow Graves: A Memoir of the Ethiopia-Eritrea War.
For Further Investigation
Richard Reid, The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 2025)
—, A History of Modern Uganda (Cambridge, 2017)
John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent, 3rd ed., (Cambridge, 2017)
Related Episodes
Land of Tears—Robert Harms on the exploration and exploitation of the Congo
Empire and Jihad—Neil Faulkner on the British Empire and revolutionary Islamic movements
Listen and Discuss
What does a single Tanzanian road reveal about global change? Share your thoughts below—and pass this episode along to someone who thinks the nineteenth century was only about Europe.
