The Scramble for Africa, 3rd edition

Review

By John A. Hargreaves , published 12th June 2011

M.E. Chamberlain, The Scramble for Africa, 3rd edition, Pearson Education Limited, 2010, paperback, 153 pp, £15.19, ISBN 9781408220146

This third revised edition of a classic contribution to the groundbreaking Seminar Studies in History is by a former editor of The Historian, Muriel Chamberlain, Emeritus Professor of History at Swansea University, has all the enhanced features of this popular series in its new large-format with a cluster of illustrations, several in full colour, ranging from a bronze African head from Ife to a Victorian painting of General Gordon's heroic last stand at Khartoum and a series of maps.

Professor Chamberlain's text is authoritative, well structured, informative and supplemented by a helpful detailed chronology of events, a comprehensive ‘Who's who' section and an accessible glossary of specialist terminology employed in the text, which is admirably clear and concise. The study documents have been carefully selected and are followed by a useful appendix detailing European claims in Africa in 1870 and European administrations during the period under review and there is a helpful critical bibliographical guide also appended providing a springboard to more detailed historical enquiry and research.