Dictionary of African Biography

The new Oxford University Press Dictionary of African Biography has been added to the Senate House Library collection - this 6 volume work edited by Emmanuel K. Akueampong and Henry Lousi Gates, Jr is housed on the 4th floor in the reference collection in the Periodicals Reading Room.

The Dictionary of African Biography is a major biographical dictionary covering the lives and legacies of notable African men and women from all eras and walks of life, teling the story of the African continent through the lives of its people. The dictionary is based on new historical research and perspectives and aims to correct the uneven coverage of previous attempts to collate African biographies - focusing unevenly on the colonial period, European adventurers, and Egyptian dynasties. As the most wide-reaching reference project on Africa to date, the Dictionary of African Biography intends to codify the explosion of new research, with entries written by contributing scholars from African studies departments the world over. The Dictionary contains nearly 2,200 entries, each with bibliography, ranging from 750 to 2,000 words, within six volumes.