History of Africa
Upon completing his PhD in 1982, Zeleza took up an appointment as a lecturer in the department of history at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, where he spent two years. In August 1984, he relocated to Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, the country on which he had done his PhD dissertation and where he had spent a year between 1979–1980 conducting research. At Kenyatta, he taught African economic history and began the extensive research that would eventually result in his award-winning book, "A Modern Economic History of Africa". He was promoted from the position of lecturer to senior lecturer in 1987.