| المستخلص: |
The field of African studies is one of the fields of knowledge that have relevance in social sciences in general and political sciences in particular. Perhaps this is due to the expansion of observations of social phenomena, their growth, and the diversity of their consequences in the African continent. To the extent that it is possible to withdraw the theories of social and political phenomena that arose in Western experience, and developed under it. Hence, its results and conclusions were based, according to it, on the diverse and rapidly developing African experience, influenced by a package of internal and external interactions, with which it requires a thorough, careful and scrutiny study of it and its considerable specificity. Perhaps the most prominent transformation that contributed to the emergence and growth of the field of African studies in particular and resulted from the previous features in one way or another, is the emergence of what is known in political science as area studies; which emerged in particular due to the transformation of the contexts of political practice since the sixties of the last century with the growing global roles of American civil society such as civil rights movements and others, most of which were led by African- American personalities on the one hand, and the growing attention of American capital and businessmen towards the wealth of natural resources in the newly independent countries in Africa on the other hand. The growing number of citizens of African descent in many of those countries, such as the United States of America and Brazil, and according to what a US report, issued by the State Department, revealed that Africa was the largest geographical area that had the ability to maneuver in competition between the Communist and capitalist blocks during the Cold War, and why this requires more Western research engagement in Africa. In the end, all of the above led to an increase in the number of researchers and research schools around the world concerned with the field of African studies. Perhaps the first and most important of these schools is the American School with its various aspects. Accordingly, this study is concerned with examining the state of the field of African studies in American research and educational institutions, from several angles. The first is the institutionalization of the field of African studies in the United States of America, the second is the growth of the field of African studies in American universities, the third is the growth of research and educational spending on African studies programs in American educational institutions, and the fourth is the growing interest of American think tanks in the field of African studies, and finally new research trends in the field of African studies in the USA
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