Abstract

Padmore’s contributions to historical knowledge and history writing are stored in eight topical books, published between 1931 and 1956. After providing a cursory survey, this paper’s focus is on two of Padmore’s early books—How Britain Rules Africa (1936) and Africa and World Peace (1937)—arguing for his originality as a pioneering practitioner of global history of contemporary Africa. Padmore treats the various colonial situations in the British dominated territories in depth and considers the relevant imperial relations as well. Attacking “colonial fascism”, Padmore depicts Africa’s history since the mid-nineteenth century and its relations to other places on the globe since. Linking current political developments in the imperial metropoles (from Europe and the US to Japan and the USSR) with those in colonial Africa, Padmore was a global historian at the same time he produced African history.