George Padmore, Global Historian of Contemporary Africa avant la lettre

This paper looks at the Pan-African intellectual activist George Padmore’s contributions to historical knowledge and history writing. Between 1931 and 1956, this Trinidad-born writer published eight topical books all of which contain historical data and narrative. After a cursory survey of them all, I focus on two of Padmore’s early books arguing for his originality as a pioneering practitioner of global history of contemporary Africa. Though his reflections and writings were always triggered by present events and urgencies, Padmore’s perspective in dealing with them was always and consistently historical. In How Britain Rules Africa (1936), for instance, he treats the various colonial situations in the British dominated territories, making impressive use of a very rich mix of written and oral sources, producing a work in contemporary history of the British colonies in Africa second to none for a long time. Sensitive to the importance of forms of local knowledge and sources from below, he also was well aware of the relevance of international relations and world historical processes. The latter point comes to the fore especially clear in Africa and World Peace (1937). Attacking imperialism and “colonial fascism,” Padmore depicts Africa’s history since the mid-19th century and its relations to other places on the globe since. He then puts forward an explanation, in historical terms, why Europe—and the whole world—was now heading towards another armed clash, by linking current political developments in the imperial metropoles (from Europe and the US to Japan and the USSR) with those in colonial Africa. In that sense, Padmore was a global historian at the same time he produced African history. If it is true that understanding the world today requires a global perspective as well as insights from particular places, the rediscovery and re-reading of Padmore’s historical writings is surely worthwhile.