Historiographical Essay – Colonialism in Africa: A historiographical essay summarizes and analyzes i
nterpretations of scholars on a given issue or topic. For this assignment, your assigned topic will be
colonialism in Africa. The historiographical essay is a special type of analytical writing that only
considers secondary sources – available through the online library EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest
databases, among others – and traces how historians have interpreted this topic over time. Essays will be 10-15 pages in length and include a minimum of 25 relevant secondary sources. For additional
guidance, a sample historiographical essay – Eric Foner’s “Reconstruction Revisited” – is also attached.
nterpretations of scholars on a given issue or topic. For this assignment, your assigned topic will be
colonialism in Africa. The historiographical essay is a special type of analytical writing that only
considers secondary sources – available through the online library EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest
databases, among others – and traces how historians have interpreted this topic over time. Essays will be 10-15 pages in length and include a minimum of 25 relevant secondary sources. For additional
guidance, a sample historiographical essay – Eric Foner’s “Reconstruction Revisited” – is also attached.
The essays shall be double-spaced, and in a 12-point Times New Roman font. Citations are required
and must follow the Chicago footnote/bibliography citation protocols. Additionally, follow the formatting as put forth in the attached (below) guide: Sample Formatting Chicago Style Essay. Note that
annotation is not required for the Historiographical Essay.
Regarding Internet sources to be used citation purposes, acceptable sites include scholarly websites
and documents available through academic and governmental holdings, libraries, archives and
databases. For our purposes, Wikipedia (as well as the other “Wiki” sites) is not considered a valid
academic source. You may not use the readings for this course.
