The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the publication of a massive amount of literature on Nigeria by Nigerian and non-Nigerian historians. The primary aim of this book is to reflect on this literature, with a sole focus on those works generated by Nigerians in the context of the rise and decline of African nationalist historiography. Our emphasis on the role of Nigerian historians supports an ever-growing scholarly aspiration for studies on historical methodologies and historiographies. Given the diminishing share by African historians in the global output of literature on Africa, it has become of crucial importance to reintroduce Africans into history writing about Africa.

As we attempt to rescue older voices, we also rehabilitate a stale historiography by revisiting the issues, ideas, and moments that produced it. This revivalism connects very powerfully with a larger desire to challenge the Nigerian historians of the twenty first century to rethink their paradigms and to develop fresher ideas to study the nation, to comprehend its modernity, and to frame a new set of questions on Nigeria's future and globalization. A separate project needs to study the contemporary writings of the younger generation of Nigerian historians to see the extent to which they have absorbed many of the ideas presented in this book, and the ways and manner in which they also have moved away from them. To be sure, nationalist historiography is very resilient, and we demonstrate this in the chapters on the most dominant themes on Nigeria.