This rich collection of biographies of African men and women adds a crucial human dimension to our understanding of the continent's tumultuous history since 1800. They coped with upheavals such as the Atlantic slave trade, the absorption of smaller societies by larger ones, and growing European intrusion and conquest. More recently, they were actors who participated in the changes and challenges of independence, including dictatorship, economic boom and bust, internal conflict, and, for some, migration from their homeland. Their lives demonstrate that individual women and men can and do indeed "make history."