In this chapter, we turn our focus to Africa between 1914 and 1939, stopping at the doorstep of the Second World War. The lesson begins by quickly reviewing the history of Africa before WWI, the period during which European powers carved up the continent, first at a conference table in Berlin and then on the ground as European armies, backed by African labor power and conscripts, established vast and often brutal colonial domains (as we mentioned already in Chapter 1).

Next, we focus on the effects WWI had on Africa. Both territorially and socio‐economically the war played a huge role in shaping African life. The final part of the lecture will paint as full a portrait as possible of African life in the 1920s and early 1930s. It is in this period that we see an entrenchment of colonial systems of rule and the origins of a new‐style of African resistance movement, this time not dependent first and foremost of force.