The Colonial Origins of Library Development in Africa: Some Reflections on Their Significance

Every community, every society, and every nation confronts its own peculiar circumstances. The peculiar circumstance of Africa, up until the 1960s, was colonialism. I use the word "colonialism" interchangeably with "imperialism," a term that I regard, following Stanislav Andreski, as referring, in general, to the extension of the power of a state through the acquisition, usually by conquest, of other territories; the subjugation of these territories' inhabitants to an alien rule imposed on them by force; and their economic and financial exploitation by the imperial power.