The history of Africa
Africa is a cradle of human civilization. The basic directions of historical development of peoples of Africa have a lot of common with the peoples populating other regions and continents.
However the historical processes and features of national consolidation and formation of statehood in Africa lasted with the big originality, that in many respects were defined by exclusive complexity of an ethnic compound of peoples populating it and solidness of breeding frames. Through its history the ruthless epoch of trade by slaves has passed, and the long colonial period finished basically in midpoint of the XX century. The majority of countries of Africa have found state independence only in 50 - 60th of the XX century.