Myth, History And Society: The Collected Works of Adiele Afigbo. This item is unavailable.Myth, History And Society: The Collected Works of Adiele Afigbo

An examination of the modern idea of statecraft in the light of myths and legends as they were used to shore up the states of ancient Africa. Adiele Afigbo argues that Nigerian historians and historians of Africa as a whole have seen and pursued their historical studies and writing as a part of a larger effort to create, consolidate and run modern states. It is this process that he refers to as statecraft and it is this, he asserts, that has been present in the storytelling practices of Africans since the beginning of recorded history.

The works of legendary Nigerian historian Adiele Afigbo, collected by Toyin Falola. An anthology of Afigbo's writing on the historiography of Nigeria and, by extension, his vision of a unified historiography of the African continent. Afigbo's central idea is that Nigerian historians and historians of Africa as a whole have from the birth of the new African historiography seen and published historical studies and writings as part of a larger effort to create, consolidate and run modern and modernising states in the continent. It is this larger process that Professor Afigbo refers to as "statecraft" - and it is from a study of this larger process that he draws the conclusion that its role is neither new nor surprising, but rather a part of an ongoing African historic tradition dating back to the "older versions of history" where the stories of a nation's past are embedded in myth and song. For Afigbo, statecraft in this sense is a revival and continuation of a process and profession that has been an apart of the African way of life since the first tribal songs were sung.

The myths and legends of the old fathers were constructed to shore up the states of pre-colonial Africa and to create a wide enough political space in which the citizens of each state and society could comfortably exist. Modern African historiography runs the same course.