Africa

Books 276 Xmas 21_Opener credit Rosalind Jane

33 best books for history lovers: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year 2021

Susan Williams discusses the United States’ covert programme to undermine the leaders of newly independent African nations in the 1950s and 1960s. (Image by Getty Images)

The CIA’s secret African missions

A painting showing British troops advancing on Ulundi, mountains in the background

The forgotten battles of the Zulu War

Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia

Haile Selassie, last emperor of Ethiopia and architect of modern Africa

Saul Dubow responds to listener questions on Victorian Britain’s bitter conflict with two southern African republics. (Image by Getty Images)

The Boer War: everything you wanted to know

Illustration of the French colonial army departing to fight under Colonel Marchand

What if... Britain and France went to war during the 1898 Fashoda Incident?

Tourists at the Sphinx and Great Pyramid of Giza in 1923

Who was ancient Egypt’s most successful pharaoh?

Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad

Jihad and the British empire

Two Hitler Youth who have surrendered to Allied Forces, Germany, 1945. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

First World War

Innocence under fire: how children were used in warfare of the past

Soldiers disembark a landing craft with a battle on the beach beyond

How to win a 20th-century battle

Statue of Ibn Battuta at the Islamic culture center, Quanzhou, Fujian, China

Ibn Battuta: the most famous traveller of the medieval Arab world

Nikita Khrushchev visits President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1964

Snuffed out democracies and poisoned toothpaste: how the Cold War wreaked havoc in post-colonial Africa

Benin Bronzes at the British Museum In London

What are the Benin Bronzes and why are they important? Explore the significance of the controversial treasures

A plaque which decorated the palace of the Benin Obas, The Obas butchers sacrificing a cow, the most prestigious animal sacrifice

Benin: a kingdom cast in bronze, brought to ruin by Britain

This statue of Arsinoe II identified her with the goddess Isis – thanks, in part, to the so-called ‘Isis knot’ on her right shoulder – so exploiting Egyptian tradition to strengthen her image (© Getty)

The female ‘kings’ of ancient Egypt