For many good reasons, this is being called the African Century. For the same good reasons, it is time to celebrate the history of Africa’s urban and scholarly past. This history upends the colonial-era narrative offered up in movies, the media, and schools. Recovering Africa’s actual history promises to boost expectations, especially for kids. It’s a game changer. The good news is that not just Africa’s history, but people around the world are recovering their actual history, where the colonial savage-versus-civilized narrative still hangs on. This is a who-done-it for those who never accepted the traditional progressive claim that Africa was lifted up by a civilized Europe. More than just dry history, it’s a detective story featuring groundbreaking authors and filmmakers’ efforts to uncover and present Africa’s and the former colonial world’s legacy of culture, learning, and achievement. This book is intended to be shared with kids and read by young adults, parents, and grandparents. It’s also a way for history buffs to get a thumbnail introduction to the subject. It highlights the recent efforts of writers and filmmakers to restore stolen history and bring our cultural and intellectual inheritance into the light.

About the Author

W.R. Bailey has had a decades-long interest in African and African-American history. Into the Light distills the current movement to celebrate the African Century and the achievements of Africans and African-Americans. The author is a graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco, School of Law. He is a member of the American Historical Association (AHA) and has participated in the AHA on-line community focusing on a new field, computational history. Computational history makes use of lessons from our digital age and does not take the nineteenth century view that history is simple or inevitable, but the product of complex mixing of communities and cultures. Bailey grew up in a San Francisco Bay Area aerospace family in a culture focused on lively political discussion, jazz music, outdoor sports, and digital technology. His background, which includes law and engineering, dovetails with this emerging new framework. The author’s website, “The Computational Age,” focuses on the rise of a network-centric view of history and culture. Bailey’s published articles have covered current affairs, history, and natural resources. The author enjoys reading, spending time in the mountains, outdoor sports, friends, his cat, and any good chat.