The Philosophy of History
Background: In The Philosophy of History (1837), Georg Hegel, an influential German philosopher, stated: “At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit . . . . What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.” More than one hundred years later, the British professor, Hugh Trevor-Roper, echoed Hegel’s assertions in his book, The Rise of Christian Europe: “Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at the present there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness, and darkness is not the subject of history” (1964).
Assignment: Write an essay in which you critically reflect and respond to Hegel’s and Trevor-Roper’s comments above about Africa. Your essay should be 4-5 pages, typed and doubled spaced and must conform to the seventh edition of the APA (The American Philosophical Association). References must reflect at least 4 of the assigned class readings (*you have permission to incorporate the reader responses you have turned in so far in class). Additional sources including Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart can also be included.
