The History of Africa Podcast
102 episodes listed below
PRESS PLAY
Take a deep dive deep into African history with this in-depth podcast. From Casablanca to Cape Town, tune in to this podcast to learn about the magnificent and oft-forgotten history of Africa. To access more free resources about African history, provide feedback, or support the show, check out our associated website at https://historyofafricapodcast.blogspot.com
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Andy makes African political worlds legible through connected narratives, careful source handling, and an unusually clear eye for historical uncertainty.
History of Africa builds narrative history from political change, trade, language, religion, and the evidence left behind. Andy guides the account alone, using episode-to-episode recaps to keep long arcs intelligible.
Even a possible Garamantian temple needs a footnote; your curiosity will thank Andy for it.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A spare Sahara setting opens into a careful argument about rock art, animals, and the lives behind them.
The Libyan Sahara gives the episode a clear and useful tension: a place that can look empty or hostile turns out to hold a much older human record.
Kiwawa's recovery leads into Songomnara's walls, tower, and a careful lesson in historical uncertainty.
Season 6, Episode 13 follows Kiwawa's slow return from a fourteenth-century economic collapse before shifting to Songomnara, a Swahili coastal settlement where stone architecture makes wealth, density, and security feel unusually concrete.
Madagascar's gold fields test whether foreign capital can steady a government close to collapse.
Madagascar's gold fields become the pressure point in a wider political gamble. Prime minister Reni Laerifouni brings a tightly controlled resource into public view, hoping foreign capital can steady a government close to collapse.
A grounded archaeological look at settlement, farming, and evidence on the prehistoric Swahili Coast.
This single-episode review frames the prehistoric Swahili Coast as a story best read through the ground itself: pottery, irrigation traces, crops, grinding bowls, and domesticated animals.
A measured correction to the Sahara-as-barrier story, built around trade, movement, and cautious ancient evidence.
The Garamantes come through here as a useful correction to the familiar Sahara-as-barrier story. The review follows the shift from nomadic herding toward settled agriculture, then shows how irrigation in Wadi al-Ajjel supported growing settlements while pastoral groups still…
A sharp linguistic route into Kilwa, maritime power, and the history of the Swahili Coast.
Swahili is treated here as a familiar word with a history worth slowing down for. The episode starts with its visibility to non-African audiences, then follows the name back to the Arabic sawahil, or coasts.
Ibn Battuta's 1330 visit to Kilwa becomes a sharp look at wealth, raiding, and a late boom in the Indian Ocean world.
The episode makes Ibn Battuta's stop in Kilwa feel like a useful window onto the city's wider place in the Indian Ocean world. A traveler arriving in 1330, after years across the Islamic world, gives the story a firm anchor, and the episode keeps a steady balance between what…
A conquest story where the real struggle is over who gets to rule.
The episode looks past the conquest itself and into the harder problem that follows: what happens when a damaged city still has to decide who should rule.
Dramatized deep dives into American history, from the Galveston hurricane to Harper Lee's Mockingbird.
Curious facts, kid-sized and quiz-ready.
This episode explores the brief Portuguese conquest of Kilwa Kisiwani in the early 1500s, detailing their struggles to control the city through puppet sultans, local revolts, and failed alliances.
Season 5, Episode 1 of the History of Africa podcast launches investigation into the Garamantes civilization through immersive narrative.
Host Andy continues the History of Africa podcast's examination of Kilwa's Shirazi Dynasty, focusing on the 12th-century rise of two consecutive rulers (Dawud ibn Suleiman and his son Hasan Suleiman ibn Dawud) who transformed the small island city-state into a regional power through control of the Sofala gold trade.
History of Africa Season 5 Episode 6, “The Mysterious Garamantian Collapse,” opens with Andy challenging the common idea that the Garamantis simply ran out of groundwater.
This episode details the Roman Republic's military campaign against the Garamantean civilization of the Sahara in 19 BC, led by General Lucius Cornelius Balbus Minor.
This episode explores the 14th-century economic decline of the Swahili city-state Kiwawa (Kilwa Kisiwani) and the concurrent rise of its neighbor, the fortified 'stone city' of Songo Mnara.
This episode chronicles the arrival of Portuguese explorers in East Africa in 1498 and their subsequent encounters with the declining Swahili city-state of Kilwa.
This episode explores Madagascar's economic crisis in the 1880s, as Prime Minister Rainy Laerifuni attempts to save the country by reopening secret gold mines.
It opens with a brief Patreon pitch for miniature 3D models of African monuments.
The show opens by pushing back on the lone-archaeologist fantasy and turning that imagination toward the Swahili Coast.
History of Africa’s Season 4, Episode 2, “Fossil Water Farming,” follows the Fezzan from oasis pastoralism to irrigated settlement and the rise of Garamantian civilization.
This episode explores the political instability of 15th-century Kilwa, focusing on a generational feud between the Wasil and Mahdi families that led to repeated coups.
The episode follows the Garamantian world after the familiar collapse story and asks what that phrase leaves out.
Andy hosts the first part of a two-part series on the historiography of the Bantu, exploring how the term originated from linguistic observation of similarities between Central and Southern African languages, and how this linguistic category became weaponized through apartheid legislation including the Bantu Authorities Act and forced Bantustan creation.
History of Africa episode 5 of season 6 examines the Kilwa Chronicle, a set of Portuguese and Arabic documents that both tell a story about Ali ibn Hasan, a prince from Shiraz who is said to have reached Kilwa by way of Hormuz and Zanzibar.
The History of Africa closes Season 4 with the French conquest of Madagascar, beginning with Britain recognizing the French protectorate after the Zanzibar bargaining of 1890.
History of Africa season 5 episode 5 follows Garama after Balbus's 19 BC campaign and argues that Roman pressure helped set up the Garamantes' Golden Age rather than ending it.
The episode returns to Kilwa after the episode on al-Mawahib.
Andy uses the Kilwa Chronicle, archaeology, and coin finds to argue that Kilwa became an early economic power in East Africa.
Hassan ibn Talut's rule is presented as a major pivot for Kilwa.
This episode explores the story of Zengjiani, a Zanzibari traveler who journeyed to China in 1071 and was recorded in Song Dynasty chronicles.
This episode explores the early history of Kiloa, a small island off Tanzania, tracing its transformation from obscurity to regional importance, while examining the Bantu expansion's impact and the emergence of Swahili culture through archaeological evidence like pottery sherds.
Season 6 Episode 18 of History of Africa explores the rise of the Omani Empire as a non-European colonial power reshaping East Africa.
This episode explores the Mahdali coup in 14th-century Kilwa, where Hassan ibn Talut violently overthrew the long-ruling Shirazi dynasty, marking a major political shift.
History of Africa tracks how Kilwa rose up against Shanga after a foreign conquest around the turn of the 11th century, with the sultan fleeing either to Zanzibar or Mafia Island.
Kilwa’s rise meets its first real setback.
History of Africa Season 6 Episode 1, “The Swahili Coast,” opens by arguing that Western audiences often treat Swahili as Africa’s default language, citing more than 100 American universities that teach Ki-Swahili and the use of Swahili in films like Mean Girls and The Lion King.
The Sahara wasn't an impenetrable barrier—trans-Saharan trade was remarkably common, not exceptional.
This episode recounts Portuguese explorer Nuno Tristal's fourth voyage down the West African coast in 1446, detailing his raids and the challenges faced on the Salone River.
This episode details the French bombardment of Madagascar in 1883 and the Malagasy resistance led by Empress Rana Faluna II.
This episode covers the worsening relationship between France and the Kingdom of Madagascar leading to a French invasion, focusing on economic and diplomatic factors.
This episode covers the succession of Queen Rana Faluna II in Madagascar and the political reforms under Prime Minister Raini Lajerifuni.
This episode covers the aftermath of the 1863 coup in Madagascar and the rise of the first military dictator.
This episode explores the reign of Ashantihene Oseiya Akoto after the First Anglo-Ashanti War, focusing on his struggles with alcohol and the cultural context of drinking in Akan society.
This episode covers the aftermath of the Ashanti Civil War and the emerging threat of the Daomei War in the 1720s.
This episode covers the succession crisis and conflict following the death of Ashanti King Opokuware, focusing on the fragile governance of the empire's conquered territories.
This episode covers the transition of power in the Ashanti Empire after the death of Ose Tutu and the rise of Opokuware.
This episode details the Ashanti Empire's military reforms and their decisive battle against the Denshira in 1701.