The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the “scramble for Africa”, during which European powers imposed colonial regimes upon nearly the entire African continent. Yet the decades preceding that imperial feeding frenzy were times of revolutionary ferment and change, both politically and economically.

In his new book The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century, Richard Reid examines those changes by focusing on a stretch of road in Tanzania, one of the most active commercial highways of its time, weaving the larger African and European context around characters and events on that road.

Richard Reid is professor of African history at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St Cross College. His books include Shallow Graves: A Memoir of the Ethiopia-Eritrea War; A History of Modern Uganda; and Warfare in African History.